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Law Firm Business Plan

If you are a lawyer, chances are you have thought of owning a law firm at least once if not more.

After all, having your firm gives you the freedom of taking up projects that you like and working at flexible hours.

But with freedom comes responsibility, and most of us find the thought of doing everything from onboarding clients to taking care of every detail of their case at least in the initial days quite overwhelming.

But don’t worry! It isn’t as scary as it looks. All you need to run a successful law firm is your sharp wit to deal with cases and a well-written law firm business plan to deal with the business side of your profession.

Free Law Firm Business Plan Template

Download our free business plan template now and pave the way to success. Let’s turn your vision into an actionable strategy!

• Fill in the blanks – Outline
• Financial Tables

Industry Overview

The global legal services market was valued at a whopping sum of 849.28 billion dollars in 2020 and is expected to rise at a high rate going forward too.

The main changes in the legal industry have been brought about by the introduction of AI which does proofreading and data research jobs with higher efficiency. This lets the lawyers focus on what really matters.

Also, the security and access systems have become loads better due to cloud computing.

What is Law Firm Business Plan?

A law firm business plan is a document that outlines your business goals and strategies to achieve those goals. It includes your law firm overview, your reason to start your firm, the services you will offer, a budget or funding requirements, and strategies to get and manage your clients.

Why Law Firm Business Plan is Important?

A business plan would help you understand what sets you apart from your competitors, and how you can market your USP to your clients.

It also helps you design strategies to reach out to your clients and manage them. It comes in extremely handy for analyzing the loopholes in your business structure.

Moreover, it helps you identify your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

All in all, It can make managing your business a hassle-free and less chaotic process.

Things to Consider Before Writing a Law Firm Business Plan

Focus on your expertise.

Between juggling business and practice, it is natural that practice gets neglected more often than not. But always keep in mind that though focusing on your business is important it shouldn’t come at the cost of skills you need to develop and upgrade to do well as a lawyer.

Also, it is important to decide on a niche so you can dig deeper and become an expert at handling cases of that kind.

Create a proper website

In today’s world being present and active on the internet is as important for your business as being good at what you do.

A strong web presence helps you reach out to your customers as well as builds your reliability for them.

Build your network

Networking is an important aspect of being a lawyer. From getting new customers, getting updates on the legal world, and even collecting evidence if you are a criminal lawyer, a good network can work wonders for your legal business.

The kind of circle you belong to also has an impact on your reputation and image as a lawyer.

Develop soft skills

We all know that confidence and intellect are a lawyer’s best friends. And although it is an ongoing process to develop these skills, it is good to get a head start before you start your business.

Intellect helps you upgrade and pay attention to detail, and confidence helps you sound more convincing and reliable. Both of which are foundational to a legal business.

How to Write a Law Firm Business Plan?

A law firm business plan would be a combination of segments common to all business plans and segments specific to a law firm.

Before you start writing your business plan for your new law firm, spend as much time as you can reading through some examples of  consulting-related business plans .

Reading some sample business plans will give you a good idea of what you’re aiming for. It will also show you the different sections that different entrepreneurs include and the language they use to write about themselves and their business plans.

We have created this sample law firm business plan for you to get a good idea about how a perfect law firm business plan should look like and what details you will need to include in your stunning business plan.

Chalking out Your Business Plan

Starting your own law firm is an exciting prospect for any lawyer. Having your firm gives you more independence, lets you implement ideas you want to, and most importantly, you get to deal with clients firsthand.

And if you plan on starting your own, do so with a proper business plan.

But you might wonder, why do I need a business plan as a lawyer, isn’t my legal knowledge and years of work enough?

The answer is no.

To run a law firm you need a law degree, but to run a successful business you need a business plan alongside your degree.

Law Firm Business Plan Outline

This is the standard law firm business plan outline which will cover all important sections that you should include in your business plan.

• Mission Statement
• Vision Statement
• Financial Summary
• 3 Year profit forecast
• Business Structure
• Startup cost
• Market Analysis
• Market Trends
• Target Market
• Market Segmentation
• Sales Strategy
• Marketing Strategy
• Pricing Strategy
• Personnel Plan
• Financial Plan
• Important Assumptions
• Brake-even Analysis
• Profit Yearly
• Gross Margin Yearly
• Projected Cash Flow
• Projected Balance Sheet
• Business Ratios

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Now, let’s understand how you can complete each section of your business plan.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary forms the first page of your business plan. It acts as a pitch for your business to potential investors and should consist of the following sections.

• Objective: This gives an overview of what you wish to accomplish with your business. The objective should be clear and solve an existing problem in the market.
• Vision Statement: This should state what vision you have for your business. How do you want it to function and how far do you expect to reach with it. You can also include how your vision sits with the current market situation.
• Financial Summary: This section should ideally consist of the history of your finances and their current state. A proper financial summary helps you gain an investor’s confidence and makes it easier for your business to get funded.

2. Company Summary

Next up we have the company summary section, this segment provides an overview of your company’s structure and its functioning.

This section provides a brief description of the following:

• Legal Structure: This section would describe the legal terms and conditions your firm functions on, as well as the ownership structure of your firm.
• USP: This would consist of points that set your firm apart from your competitor’s firm.
• Services: This section will include the services you offer, the legal procedures you are well versed in, all in all, the client base you cater to.
• Location: This segment covers your area of service and the location of your firm. A clearly stated area of service, helps you reach the right audience.

3. Market analysis

This segment consists of a thorough analysis of the market situation. It can be split up into the following sub-segments.

• Market Trends: This would consist of all the prevailing trends in the market. It is important to know market trends because it helps your business keep up with the evolving market.
• Target Market:  This section would consist of a summary of the market you cater to. Clearly defining your niche helps you reach out to your desired customer base.
• Market Segmentation: In this section, note down the segments present in the market, as well as what segment of the market your business would fit in. This would help you narrow down the number of competitors you have, the strategies you must follow, and the major and additional services you should offer.

4. Strategy and implementations

In this section, you would include various business strategies like:

• Marketing strategy You can formulate a marketing strategy depending on your target audience and the easiest and most effective ways of reaching out to them. It is important to formulate your marketing strategy based on your USP and your vision statement.
• Pricing Strategy It is important to formulate a pricing strategy based on the market trends, the nature of the work, and your target audience.
• Milestones This segment would consist of the various milestones your business would have to reach to achieve your goal and the strategies to help you reach them.

5. Financial Plan

The financial section of your business plan would consist of the following information regarding your business.

• Financial history
• Current State of finances
• Profit and loss

Download a sample law firm business plan

Need help writing your business plan from scratch? Here you go;  download our free law firm business plan pdf  to start.

It’s a modern business plan template specifically designed for your law firm business. Use the example business plan as a guide for writing your own.

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Law Firm Business Plan Summary

All of the above segments would help you in creating a well-rounded business plan. Starting your law firm with a well-written business plan can make your growth process faster and smoother.

After getting started with Upmetrics , you can copy this law firm business plan example into your business plan and modify the required information and download your law firm business plan pdf or doc file.

It’s the fastest and easiest way to start writing your business plan.

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About the Author

Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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How to Create a Law Firm Business Plan Aimed at Success

Want a successful law firm? Start with a solid business plan. Our guide covers everything that will help you create a roadmap for success.

A firm exists to serve people- so its business plan must take into account those it aims to help. A law firm's business plan lays out the key pillars that will support a practice, from operational details to marketing strategies to financial projections. Furthermore, it should provide a clear roadmap for where the firm hopes to be in the coming years.

In this blog,  we will guide you through the process  of creating a comprehensive law firm business plan that  will help you achieve your goals . Additionally, in our latest Grow Law Firm podcast, our host Sasha Berson conversed with Omar Ochoa, the founding attorney of Omar Ochoa Law Firm, to discuss the topic of creating a law firm business plan aimed at success.

Why Is a Business Plan Important for Law Firms?

A business plan is a vital tool for any law firm to achieve success. It outlines goals, strategies, and the feasibility of business ideas, providing a clear direction and focus for the firm. The plan can be used to secure funding from investors or financial institutions by demonstrating the potential for growth and profitability.

Moreover, a business plan supports decision-making by evaluating the feasibility of new ventures and assessing potential risks and rewards. It helps to manage resources effectively by setting financial goals and tracking progress, ensuring the firm is making the most of its resources and achieving objectives.

Lastly, a law firm's business plan enables growth by identifying new opportunities and developing strategies to capitalize on them. By planning for the future and setting realistic growth targets, law firms can take their businesses to the next level. Overall, a well-developed business plan is critical for success in the legal industry, providing direction and focus, supporting decision-making, managing resources effectively, and enabling growth.

General Tips for Creating an Attorney Business Plan

Building a business plan for law firms is not an easy or intuitive process. By considering the following issues before opening your doors to clients, you have a much better chance of having a stable firm that matches your values and has a clear set of goals.

— Stay Focused

Forming a law firm can feel overwhelming. You have a lot of freedom and can easily get sidetracked into issues that either can wait or do not deserve your attention.

If having a strong law firm website design is important enough for you to include in your plan, you will spend time on that instead of less important matters.

A plan also includes a budget. The process of planning your firm's finances can ensure that you do not overspend (or underspend) as you start your own firm.

The attention to detail that comes from having a plan will help you avoid spreading yourself too thin by focusing on every issue or the wrong issues. Instead, you will maintain your focus on the important issues.

Whether you have law partners or develop a solo law firm business plan, the plan will help you stay focused on your end goals.

— Keep Track of Goals and Results

It is easy to set goals when you  start a law firm and then promptly forget about them.

Your plan will set out your goals and the metrics you will use to determine your progress toward meeting them. The plan should also explain how you will know when you have met them.

For example, you might have a growth goal of reaching five lawyers within two years. Or you might have a revenue goal of collecting $200,000 your first year.

Too many businesses, including law firms, meander on their developmental path. By setting goals and the path for meeting them, you will have guardrails to keep your firm on track.

"If you want to be the number one law firm in the country by revenue right in a 20 year time period, have that be your goal and everything that you do right is in service of that goal. You might not get there, but you're gonna find that you're gonna be very successful either way."

"If you want to be the number one law firm in the country by revenue right in a 20 year time period, have that be your goal and everything that you do right is in service of that goal. You might not get there, but you're gonna find that you're gonna be very successful either way." — Omar Ochoa

— Sort Out Your Own Law Firm Strategy

Developing a clear vision is important for establishing a strategic law firm plan aimed at long-term goals . As Omar Ochoa discusses in the podcast, having very specific milestone visions like where you want to be in five, ten, or fifteen years helps drive the strategy and actions needed to get there.

It's easy to say that you'll run your law firm better. But a plan actually helps you identify how to improve by articulating a concrete strategy. The process of creating the plan will help you pinpoint problems and solutions.

A plan forces consideration of operational details often overlooked. It equates to defining your firm's purpose and then pursuing that vision with purpose-driven strategies and actions. As Omar notes, marrying vision to action through knowledge of other successful law firm models is key to achieving goals.

One area that is frequently overlooked in plans is the inclusion of law firm marketing strategies . Developing this aspect is critical for attracting clients and sustaining growth.

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— Move Forward

You should view your plan as a law firm business development plan that will guide the formation and growth of your firm .

You can review the document periodically to remind you and your law partners of your growth and expansion projections. After this review, you can ensure your growth and expansion remain on track to carry you to your goals.

The review will also tell you whether you need to update your firm's goals. When you started your law firm, you might have been unduly pessimistic or optimistic in your projections. Once you have some time to operate according to your plan, you can update your goals to keep them realistic. You can also update your processes to focus on what works and discard what does not.

The review can provide your projections for what you hope to accomplish and the roadmap for accomplishing it.

Law Firm Business Plan Template

Each of the websites below includes at least one attorney business development plan template:

• Business Plan Workbook
• PracticePro
• Smith & Jones, P.A.
• Wy'East Law Firm

You can use a law firm strategic plan example from these sites to start your firm's plan, then turn the plan into a document unique to your circumstances, goals, and needs.

What to Consider before Starting Law Firm Business Plans

Before starting a law firm business plan, think through a few key issues, including:

— Setting the Goals

Reflect deeply on your firm's purpose. Think about who you represent and how you can best meet their needs. A law firm exists for its clients. As you think about your  law firm goals , think about goals for providing legal services to your clients.

"We continue to try to have the biggest impact that we can because ultimately, in my opinion at least, that's what lawyers are for, is to be able to help people and be able to move us forward." — Omar Ochoa

You need to set realistic and achievable goals. These goals should reflect your reasons for starting your law firm. Thus, if you started your law firm because you expected to make more money on your own than working for someone else, set some goals for collections.

While you are setting your goals, think about how you will reach them and the ways you will measure your success. For example, if you want to expand to include ten lawyers within three years, think about intermediate goals at the end of years one and two. This helps measure your progress.

— Choosing Partnership Structure

For lawyers considering a partnership structure, it's important to select partners that complement each other's strengths and weaknesses to help the firm function effectively.

There are 2 main partnership structure options:

• A single-tier model provides equal decision-making power and liability between partners.
• Meanwhile, a two-tier structure offers tiers like equity and non-equity partners, providing flexibility and career progression opportunities.

While similarly skilled individuals may clash, partners with differing abilities can succeed together. Some attorneys also choose to run their own firm for flexibility. This allows them to leverage different specialists through occasional joint ventures tailored for specific cases, without the constraints of a single long-term partnership. Furthermore, it highlights how the law firm partnership structures impacts freedom and sustainability.

— Thinking of the Revenue You Need

Calculate how much revenue you need to cover your overhead and pay your salary. Suppose your expenses include:

• $2,000 per month for office rent
• $36,000 per year for a legal assistant salary
• $600 per month for courier expenses
• $400 per month for a copier lease

Assume you want the  median annual salary for lawyers  of $127,990. You need $199,990 per year in revenue to cover your salary and expenses.

But revenue is not the end of the story. Your landlord, vendors, and employees expect to get paid monthly. So, you should also calculate how much cash flow you need each month to cover your hard expenses.

You also need a reserve. Clients expect you to front expenses like filing fees. Make sure you have a reserve to pay these costs and float them until clients reimburse you.

— Defining the Rate of Payment

You need to make some difficult decisions when it comes to setting your own fee structure. If you choose a higher billing rate, you will need to work less to meet your revenue goals. But you might not find many clients who are able to pay your fees.

Whether you charge a flat fee, contingent fee, or hourly fee, you should expect potential clients to compare your fees to those of your direct and indirect competitors. Remember, your firm competes against other lawyers, online services like  LegalZoom , and do-it-yourself legal forms books.

Finally, you need to comply with your state's rules of professional conduct when setting your fees. The  ABA's model rules  give eight factors to determine the reasonableness of a fee. These factors include the customary fee for your location and the skill required to provide the requested legal services.

— Making the Cases in Your Law Practice Meet the Revenue Needs

Figure out how much you need to work to meet your revenue target . If you charge a flat fee, you can simply divide your revenue target by your flat fee.

Hourly fee lawyers can calculate the number of hours they need to bill and collect. However, law firm owners rarely bill 100% of the hours they work due to the administrative tasks they perform to run a firm. Also, you will probably not collect 100% of your billings, and clients could take 90 days or longer to pay.

Contingency fee lawyers will find it nearly impossible to project the cases they need. You have no way of knowing the value of your cases in advance. You also have no idea when your cases will settle. You could work on a case for years before you finally get paid.

Parts of a Business Plan for Law Firm Formation: Structure

A law firm business plan is a written document that lays out your law firm goals and strategies.

For many businesses, a business plan helps secure investors. But the ethical rules prohibit law firms from seeking funding from  outside investors or non-lawyer shareholders .

Your business plan is for you and your law partners. It will help you manage everyone's expectations and roles in the firm. Here is a law firm business plan example to help you see the parts and pieces in action.

— Executive Summary

An executive summary combines the important information in the business plan into a single-page overview. Your plan will include details like projections, budgets, and staffing needs. This section highlights the conclusions from those detailed analyses.

Your executive summary should include :

• A mission statement explaining the purpose of your firm in one or two sentences
• A list of the core values that your firm will use whenever it makes decisions about its future
• The firm's overarching goals for itself, its lawyers, and the clients it serves
• The unique selling proposition that sets your firm apart from other firms in the legal industry

You should think of this section as a quick way for people like lenders, potential law partners, and merger targets, to quickly understand the principles that drive your firm.

— Law Firm Description and Legal Structure

First, you will describe what your law firm does. You will describe your law practice and the clients you expect to serve.

Second, you will describe how your firm operates. The organization and management overview will explain your legal structure and the management responsibilities of you and your law partners.

This section should fill in the details about your firm's operation and structure by:

• Describing the scope of the legal services you offer and your ideal clients
• Restating your mission statement and core values and expanding upon how they will guide your firm
• Explaining your location and where your clients will come from
• Describing your business entity type and management structure
• Detailing your unique selling proposition , including the features that distinguish your firm from your competitors

When someone reads this section, they should have a clear picture of what you will create.

— Financial Calculations

Your attorney business plan explains where your firm's revenue comes from and where it goes. This is where your skills as a lawyer begin to diverge from your skills as a business owner. You may need to learn a few new accounting concepts so you can perform the analyses expected in a financial plan.

You will need a  financial plan  for at least the first year.

If you plan to seek a bank loan or line of credit, your bank may need a financial plan that covers three years or longer.

You will need more than a few rough numbers for a useful business plan. Instead, you will need to estimate your expenses and revenues as accurately as possible.

"Take some financial statements courses, take some managerial accounting courses that teach you how to track costs, how to frame costs in a way that you're looking at the important costs." — Omar Ochoa

You might need to contact vendors and service providers to get precise costs. You will probably need to track your billings with your prior firm to predict your revenues. If you are opening a law firm after law school or an in-house job, you may need a competitive analysis to show what similar law firms earn in your location and practice area.

Some reports you may need in your business plan include:

• Revenue analysis listing the fees you will collect each month
• Budget describing your monthly and annual expenses
• Financial projections combining the revenue analysis and budgeted expenses to predict your profit margins
• Cash flow statement showing how your revenues and expenses affect your cash on hand.

Your cash flow statement might be the most important financial report because it explains how your bank balance will fluctuate over time. If your clients take too long to pay their bills or you have too many accounts payable due at the same time, your cash flow statement will show you when money might get tight.

— Market Analysis

A market analysis will tell you where you fit into the legal market in your location and field. You need a competitive analysis to understand the other lawyers and law firms that will compete with you for potential clients. You can also analyze their marketing messages to figure out how to stand out from the competition.

A competitive analysis will tell you what services other firms offer, how much they charge, and what features help your competitors succeed.

Your analysis should include a discussion about your :

• Ideal clients and what you can do to help them
• Market size and whether you offer something clients need
• Competitors and what they offer to clients
• Competitive advantages and how you can market them to potential clients

You can also develop and hone your marketing strategy based on the benefits you offer to clients over your competitors. Finally, a market analysis can tell you the locations and practice areas in which your firm may expand in the future.

Your market analysis helps you focus your efforts on your legal niche.

— Marketing Plan

A marketing plan sets out the steps you will take to reach your target market. Your marketing strategy will take your market analysis and turn it into a plan of action.

You will start with the results of your market analysis identifying your clients, your competitors, and your competitive advantages. You will then discuss the message you can deliver to potential clients that captures the advantages you have over your competition.

Some advantages you might have over other lawyers and law firms might include tangible benefits like lower billing rates or local office locations. Other advantages might provide some intangible benefits like more years of experience or state-bar-certified specialists in those states that allow specialization.

You will then discuss your marketing plan. A marketing plan explains :

• Characteristics of the target market you want to reach
• What your competition offers
• The distinct benefits you offer
• A message you can use to explain what separates you from your competition
• Your action plan for delivering your message
• Your goals for your action plan, such as the number of client leads, new clients, or new cases per month

Your action plan will include the marketing channels you want to use to spread your message. Marketing specialists can help you identify the best channels for your marketing message and client base.

For example, if you practice intellectual property law, you need to reach business owners and in-house lawyers who want to protect their companies' brands, inventions, artistic works, and trade secrets. A marketing agency may help you create a marketing strategy geared toward trade publications and business magazines.

However, IP lawyers require an entirely different marketing strategy than firms that practice family law. Family lawyers need to market to individuals and will tailor their marketing efforts toward different marketing channels and messages.

Even if you expect most of your client leads to come from referrals, you still need brand recognition for those leads to find you. You should consider a website, basic SEO, legal directory, and bar association listings.

— Your Law Firm Services

You will outline the services your law firm offers to clients. Lawyers with established clients and an existing legal practice can simply describe what they already do.

Any new law firm or lawyer transitioning from other practice areas should consider:

• Practice areas you know and enjoy
• Overlapping practice fields that will not require extra staff, such as personal injury and workers' comp
• Related legal services your clients may need, such as wills and guardianship

By offering needed services you can competently provide, you can gain clients and avoid referring existing clients out to other lawyers.

— Your Law Firm Budget

You should approach your budget as a living document. You will spend more money as you add more lawyers and staff members to your firm. But you can also look for ways to reduce your operating costs through investments in technology services and other cost-saving measures .

Your budget should set out the amount you expect to initially spend on start-up expenses. As you create your start-up budget, remember many of these expenses are not recurring. Furniture, computers, and office space build-outs can last several years. In short, your budget should answer the question, "What do you need to open a law firm?"

It should also lay out the amount you plan to spend each month to operate your firm. Here, you will include your recurring expenses, such as rent, staff salaries, insurance premiums, and equipment leases.

Using your operating budget, you will determine the amount of money you need to start and run your firm. This, in turn, will tell you whether you need to take out a loan or tap into your savings to start your law firm. You will need a plan for paying your expenses and day-to-day costs while your firm gets onto its feet.

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Some Useful Tips on Creating a Business Plan for Law Firm Creation and Development

As you draft your law firm business plan, you should focus on the process. By putting your thoughts down in writing, you will often identify issues you had not previously considered.

Some other tips for drafting your business plan include:

— Describe Both Strengths and Weaknesses

You want to project confidence as you prepare your business plan. Remember, you will use this plan to approach potential law partners, lenders, and merger targets. You need to show that you have a solid plan backed up by your financial projections.

At the same time, you need to remain realistic. Write a business plan that describes your business challenges as well as your competitive advantages.

For example, if you have a strong competitor that has a solid  law firm reputation management  and many of the clients you will target, acknowledge the difficulty of getting those clients to switch law firms. Describe your marketing strategies for approaching and pitching your law firm to those clients.

— Think Ahead

Remember that your business plan sets out the roadmap for both the establishment and operation of your law firm . Think about issues that could arise as your firm grows and matures.

For example, you may have a goal of reaching ten lawyers in three years. But as your staff grows, you may need a human resources manager. You may also seek to handle your payroll in-house instead of outsourcing it to a payroll provider. These changes will create ripple effects throughout your business plans. You will incur costs when you add staff members. You will also realize benefits like increased attorney efficiency.

At the same time, any projections more than five years into the future will likely be useless. Your firm and its clients will evolve, and technology will change how you practice law.

— Be Clear about Your Intentions

As you develop your plan, you should keep its purpose in mind. First, you want to outline your core values and goals for your law firm. Set out the reasons why you started your law firm and what you intend to accomplish with it.

"You can't just be doing something because you want prestige. There's gotta be more to that, right? You have to have a purpose that you're following. And if you've got that, that purpose is like gravity, right? You will always be grounded." — Omar Ochoa

Second, you set out your path to achieving those goals. This will include boring technical information like how much you spend on legal research every month. But it will also explain your approach to solving problems consistent with your mission statement and philosophy for law firm management.

— Consult and Update If Necessary

Your plan should guide you as you build your firm. It contains your goals and the roadmap for reaching them. But your plan is not carved in stone.

As you face challenges, you will consult your plan to make sure you approach these challenges in a way consistent with achieving your goals. But under some circumstances, you might find that the plan no longer provides the right solution.

As you work with your firm and your law partners, your goals, processes, and solutions to problems may evolve. The technology your firm uses may change. Your law firm's costs may go up with inflation or down as you realize economies of scale. You should update your plan when this happens.

Final Steps

There is no recipe for creating a business plan for law firm development. What goes into your mission statement and plan will depend on several factors, including your law firm's business model. But this is a feature, not a bug of developing a business plan.

The process of business planning will help you develop solutions to issues you might have overlooked. If you have law partners, just going through the process of creating a law firm business plan can ensure that everyone is on the same page.

As you create your plan, the process itself should provoke thoughts and ideas so you can have a unique law firm tailored to your goals and values. This will help you get exactly what you wanted when you started in the legal industry.

To learn how to expand your client base as your firm grows, check out Grow Law Firm, a professional  law firm SEO agency .

Founder of Omar Ochoa Law Firm

Omar Ochoa is a founding attorney with extensive experience in complex litigation, including antitrust, class actions, and securities cases. He has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients and has been nationally recognized as one of the best young trial lawyers in the country.

Omar graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in business administration, accounting, and economics. He later earned his law degree from the university, serving as editor-in-chief of the Texas Law Review. He has clerked for two federal judges and has worked at the prestigious law firm Susman Godfrey L.L.P. Omar is dedicated to seeking excellence. He has been recognized for his outstanding achievements in antitrust litigation.

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Starting a law firm can be a rewarding and lucrative venture, but it requires careful planning and strategy. A well-crafted business plan is a crucial tool for any law firm looking to establish itself, secure funding, or grow its practice. The business plan will serve as a roadmap, outlining the law firm’s objectives, strategies, and unique selling proposition

Why Every Law Firm Needs a Business Plan

A well-structured business plan is imperative for every law firm, regardless of its size or specialization. While legal expertise is undoubtedly crucial, having a clear vision and strategic direction is equally essential. A business plan serves as a guiding light, defining the firm’s mission, values, and long-term goals. This clarity is vital for aligning the entire firm towards a common purpose, ensuring that everyone understands the objectives and the path to achieving them. Without a business plan, a law firm may find itself navigating uncertain waters, reacting to circumstances rather than proactively pursuing its ambitions.

The Key Components of a Law Firm Business Plan

A well-structured law firm business plan consists of several key components, each playing a crucial role in guiding the firm’s operations and ensuring its long-term success. Here are the essential elements of a comprehensive law firm business plan:

• Executive summary
• Law firm description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Services 
• Marketing Strategy
• Financial plan
• Start-up budget

Section One: Executive Summary

The executive summary is arguably the most critical section of your law firm’s business plan. While it appears at the beginning, it is often written last, as it serves as a concise yet comprehensive overview of your entire plan. This section should capture the reader’s attention, providing them with a clear understanding of your law firm’s essence, mission, and what to expect from the rest of the document. In your executive summary:

• Introduce your law firm: Briefly describe your law firm’s name, location, and legal specialization.
• Mission and vision: State your firm’s mission and vision, highlighting your commitment to serving clients’ legal needs effectively.
• Your unique selling proposition: Clearly state your USP, and present what is unique about your firm that will ensure success.

The executive summary sets the stage for your entire business plan. It should be a concise yet compelling introduction to your firm’s mission, values, and potential. If crafted well, it can grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to explore other sections in detail. If you feel overwhelmed by this, you can write this section last. 

Section Two: Law Firm Description

This section of your business plan provides a deeper dive into your firm’s background, history, legal specializations, and legal structure and ownership. This section should provide a concise yet informative overview of your firm’s identity and history. Here’s what this section should cover:

• Mission Statement: Briefly reiterate your law firm’s mission statement. This statement should encapsulate your firm’s overarching purpose and guiding principles.
• Geographic Location: State out the physical location of your law firm’s office(s). This should include the city or region where your primary office is situated.
• Legal Structure and Ownership: State the legal structure of your law firm, whether it’s an LLC, S-Corp, or another legal entity. This choice is a fundamental aspect of your business model, influencing ownership, liability, and taxation. If your firm’s ownership is not that of a sole proprietorship, provide details on the ownership structure. Explain how the chosen structure aligns with your firm’s business model, decision-making processes, and long-term goals.
• Firm History: Provide the history of your law firm. Highlight key milestones, achievements, and notable moments in your firm’s journey. If your firm is well-established, briefly summarize its history, showcasing your accomplishments and contributions to the legal field.

Remember that brevity is key in this section. Don’t spend too much time, just touch on important points and achievements. 

Section Three: Market Analysis

A well-conducted market analysis will not only demonstrate your understanding of the legal industry but also inform your law firm’s strategies and decision-making. It goes beyond understanding your competition; it delves deep into your potential clients’ needs and expectations. 

Through market analysis, you can segment your target market based on demographics, industry, legal needs, and preferences. This segmentation allows you to tailor your services to meet the specific needs of different client groups. It also helps you identify the pain points and challenges that potential clients face. By understanding their concerns, you can offer solutions that directly address these pain points.

Your market analysis should also reveal the pricing strategies of your competitors. By benchmarking your pricing against theirs, you can position your services competitively. You can choose to price higher if you offer unique value or lower if you aim to attract price-sensitive clients. Your market analysis should reveal areas where your competitors may be falling short. Use this information to frame your services as the solution to these weaknesses. For example, if competitors have slow response times, emphasize your firm’s commitment to timely communication. 

Showcase your firm’s USPs that directly address client needs and preferences. If you excel in a particular practice area, have a reputation for excellent client service, or offer innovative fee structures, use these strengths to attract your preferred clientele. Ultimately, a well-documented market analysis not only informs your law firm’s business model but also guides your approach to client acquisition, pricing, and service delivery. It ensures that your legal services align with client expectations and positions your firm for success in a competitive legal industry

Section Four: Organization and Management

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This section provides a clear picture of your firm’s internal structure and leadership. Name the key stakeholders in your law firm and what they bring to the table. Highlight any unique experiences or expertise that each partner brings to the firm. This could include prior work at prestigious law firms, involvement in landmark cases, or specialized knowledge in a specific area of law. Explain how these experiences set your firm apart and enhance its capabilities. You can also include an organizational chart that visually represents your law firm’s structure. This chart should showcase the hierarchy, roles, and reporting lines within the firm. By including the names, educational backgrounds, unique experiences, and organizational chart, you paint a comprehensive picture of your law firm’s leadership and structure. This not only builds confidence in your team’s capabilities but also showcases the depth and expertise of your staff to potential clients, partners, or investors.

Section Five: Services

This section is the core of your law firm business plan. Here, you will go into detail about all aspects of your services. Present in simple words:

• The problem(s) your law firm is addressing and your approach to how to alleviate those pain points? Answer these questions, and provide in detail how your firm is in the best position to tackle this problem. 
• The solution(s) you are providing. This should describe how your law firm resolves your prospective market’s needs. This should include the work you do, and the benefits that each client will receive if they work with your firm. 
• Your law firm competition.  This should describe what advantages your law firm has over your competitors? What you do differently when providing your solutions and how your clients will gain additional benefits when they work with your law firm.

Section Six: Marketing Strategy

As you craft your business plan, keep these four essential questions in mind:

• What Is Your Firm’s Value Proposition? Clearly define what sets your law firm apart from others. This should guide your marketing and sales strategies, emphasizing the unique value you offer to clients.
• Who Is Your Target Audience? Identify your ideal client profile. Understanding your target audience helps tailor your marketing efforts to reach those most likely to benefit from your services.
• What Are Your Growth Goals? Set specific, measurable growth goals for your firm. These goals should inform your sales and marketing strategies, outlining how you plan to achieve them.
• How Will You Measure Success? Determine key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your marketing and sales efforts. Whether it’s tracking client acquisition rates, website traffic, or revenue growth, having measurable metrics will help you gauge your progress and make informed adjustments.

It is also valuable to perform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to assess your law firm’s internal and external factors. Describe your online marketing efforts, including your website, social media presence, and email marketing campaigns. Explain how you plan to leverage marketing  to reach and engage potential clients effectively. You should also define your pricing structure and fee arrangements. This may include hourly rates for specific legal services, retainer agreements for ongoing representation, or flat fees for standardized services. 

Section Seven: Financial Plan

If you want to expand your law firm and ensure a steady income, it’s essential to create a financial strategy for your practice. While you might not have all the answers regarding your firm’s finances, provide comprehensive details. Your goal should be to establish a financial plan, particularly for the initial year of your firm’s operation.

Provide comprehensive financial projections that cover the anticipated income, expenses, and cash flow for your law firm. These forecasts should offer a clear picture of how your firm expects to perform financially. You should also Incorporate income statements, which show your firm’s revenue and expenses, balance sheets that detail your assets and liabilities, and cash flow projections, which illustrate how money moves in and out of your business. These financial statements offer a holistic view of your firm’s financial health.

Explain the assumptions underlying your financial projections. This may include factors like growth rates, market trends, client acquisition strategies, and pricing models. Describe your strategies for achieving growth and how they translate into financial outcomes. This section is critical for demonstrating your law firm’s financial preparedness and sustainability. Investors, lenders, or partners will scrutinize these sections to assess the viability of your firm, making it essential to provide detailed and well-supported financial information.

Section Eight: Start-up Budget

When developing a business plan for your law firm, it is essential to create a realistic startup budget. This involves carefully considering various initial and ongoing expenses and factoring them into your revenue objectives. Here are some instances of expenses to incorporate into your budget:

• Hardware costs, such as laptops, printers, scanners, and office furniture.
• Office space expenses, whether you plan to rent space or work from home.
• Malpractice insurance fees.
• Staff salaries, including potential hires like administrative assistants or paralegals.
• Utility expenses, covering phone and internet services, among others.
• Expenses on practice management software or other tech tools

After itemizing these costs, review them thoroughly. Clearly state the total amount of funding you require to start and sustain your law firm. Explain how this funding will be allocated, including how much goes into covering startup costs and how much is reserved for ongoing operations. Be specific about the purpose of each funding component. 

Additionally, explore tools and solutions that can streamline non-billable tasks, freeing up more time for your legal practice. This not only enhances your overall productivity but also allows you to allocate more time to your legal practice. One exceptional solution that can significantly benefit your law firm operations is a legal practice management software. 

DigitsLaw: The Legal Practice Management Software for Law Firms

DigitsLaw is an all-in-one practice management software that streamlines and simplifies the day-to-day operations of a law firm. Whether you are a small firm or you have law firms in major cities, DigitsLaw can meet the unique needs of your legal practice. Our simple and intuitive tool offers a wealth of features that can make a substantial difference in the success and efficiency of your firm.

Here’s how DigitsLaw can help your new law firm scale:

• Effortless Case Management: DigitsLaw simplifies case management by centralizing all your client information, documents, and communications in one secure location. This ensures that you have easy access to everything you need, right at your fingertips.
• Time Tracking and Billing: With DigitsLaw, tracking billable hours and generating invoices is seamless. You can accurately record your time, expenses, and activities, allowing for transparent and error-free billing processes.
• Conflict Check: DigitsLaw provides a robust conflict check system that assists law firms in maintaining ethical standards and preventing conflicts of interest. By incorporating DigitsLaw conflict check capabilities into your law firm’s workflow, you can enhance your due diligence processes, reduce the risk of conflicts of interest, and uphold the highest ethical standards in your legal practice. 
• Client Collaboration: Foster better client relationships through DigitsLaw’s client portal . Clients can securely access case information, share documents, and communicate with your firm, enhancing transparency and trust.
• Legal Document Management: Say goodbye to the hassle of paper documents and disorganized files. DigitsLaw enables efficient document storage, organization, and collaboration, saving you time and reducing the risk of errors.
• Secure and Compliant: DigitsLaw prioritizes security and compliance, ensuring that your client data and sensitive information are protected at the highest standards.

By leveraging DigitsLaw’s capabilities, you can significantly reduce administrative overhead, minimize errors, and provide a more streamlined and responsive experience for your clients. It’s a strategic investment that will pay dividends as your firm grows and prospers.

Sample Business Plan and Fillable Template

If you’re in the early stages of creating your business plan, we’ve prepared an example that can serve as a reference. You can also download a blank version of our template here. Remember to tailor your plan to your specific requirements and objectives. 

Download your copy of our law firm business plan template HERE

Final thoughts.

In conclusion, crafting a law firm business plan is not just a formality; it’s a roadmap that guides your firm toward success. Whether you’re launching a new law firm or seeking to revitalize an existing one, a well-thought-out plan helps you.  From defining your firm’s mission and values to conducting a thorough market analysis every section of your plan plays a crucial role in shaping your law firm’s journey. It’s not just about impressing potential investors; it’s about setting clear goals, making informed decisions, and ensuring that your firm is well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

As you start planning, remember that your business plan is a living document. It should evolve and adapt as your firm grows and the legal industry changes. Regularly revisit and update your plan to stay aligned with your mission, serve your clients better, and achieve your long-term vision.

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Law Firm Business Plan Template

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How to Start a Business With No Money

How to Write a Business Plan

How to Write a Law Firm Business Plan

Simple Business Plan Outline

How to Write a Business Plan for Investors

Business Plan Template

10 Qualities of a Good Business Plan

Industry Business Planning Guides

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Law Firm Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Law Firm Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1,000 lawyers to create business plans to start and grow their law firms. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a law firm business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What is a Law Firm Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your law firm as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for a Law Firm

If you’re looking to start a law firm, or grow your existing law firm, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your law firm in order to improve your chances of success. Your law firm plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Law Firms

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a law firm are personal savings, credit cards and bank loans. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for a law firm.

If you want to start a law firm or expand your current one, you need a business plan. Below are links to each section of your law firm plan template:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of law firm you are operating and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a law firm that you would like to grow, or are you operating law firms in multiple cities?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the law firm industry. Discuss the type of law firm you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.  

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of law firm you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types of law firms:

• Commercial Law : this type of law firm focuses on financial matters such as merger and acquisition, raising capital, IPOs, etc.
• Criminal, Civil Negligence, and Personal Injury Law: this type of business focuses on accidents, malpractice, and criminal defense.
• Real Estate Law: this type of practice deals with property transactions and property use.
• Labor Law: this type of firm handles everything related to employment, from pensions/benefits, to contract negotiation.

In addition to explaining the type of law firm you will operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of clients served, number of cases won, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the law firm industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the law firm industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy, particularly if your research identifies market trends.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your law firm plan:

• How big is the law firm industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your law firm? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your law firm plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: businesses, households, and government organizations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of law firm you operate. Clearly, households would respond to different marketing promotions than nonprofit organizations, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most law firms primarily serve customers living in their same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other law firms.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes accounting firms or human resources companies. You need to mention such competition as well.

With regards to direct competition, you want to describe the other law firms with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be law firms located very close to your location.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What types of cases do they accept?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide better legal advice and services?
• Will you provide services that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you provide more responsive customer interactions?
• Will you offer better pricing or flexible pricing options?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.  

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a law firm plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of law firm company that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering. For example, in addition to in-person consultation, will you provide virtual meetings, or any other services?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the products and services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your law firm company. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your law firm located in a busy business district, office building, etc. Discuss how your location might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions : The final part of your law firm marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local websites
• Social media marketing
• Local radio advertising

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your law firm, including filling and filing paperwork, researching precedents, appearing in court, meeting with clients, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to file your 100th lawsuit, or be on retainer with 25 business clients, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your law firm to a new city.  

Management Team

To demonstrate your law firm’ ability to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing law firms. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with legal experience or with a track record of successfully running small businesses.  

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you file 25 lawsuits per month or sign 5 retainer contracts per month? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your law firm, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a law firm:

• Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc.
• Cost of licensing, software, and office supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or your certificate of admission to the bar.  

Putting together a business plan for your law firm is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert and know everything you need about starting a law firm business plan; once you create your plan, download it to PDF to show banks and investors. You will really understand the law firm industry, your competition, and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful law firm.  

Law Firm Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my law firm business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Law Firm Business Plan.

What is the Goal of a Business Plan's Executive Summary?

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of law firm you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a law firm that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of law firms?

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How to Draft a Law Firm Business Plan

Law firms are something more than a business. Law firms and the lawyers within them are engaged in a profession, with obligations that go beyond purely commercial concerns.

Listen to this article:   Click here to play this audio clip

This truth can obscure the need for lawyers to pay attention to the business management side of their practices: their finances, marketing plans, business development efforts, IT purchases, lease terms and capital needs. For the highly trained lawyer, such concerns may feel at best like an afterthought, or at worst a nuisance that steals time from their true occupation: the “practice of law.”

And yet, those annoying business details are responsible for keeping the lights on. While law firms may be more than a business, there is, in fact, a large and necessary business element to them. For solo practices and small firms in particular, investing time into the business management side of legal practice can make a major difference in the financial rewards they derive from it—or even their survival. Firms that have failed to do so in the past (and even those that haven’t) can get a handle on their law practice business management by taking the step of drafting a business plan.

THE POINT OF A BUSINESS PLAN

We’ll discuss the components of a business plan in a moment, but first, let’s talk about why this exercise is valuable. For another type of business, a business plan may be useful in attracting investors or securing financing. Law firms should not think of their business plans as utilitarian documents in that sense (although someday one could prove helpful in obtaining a line of credit, say, or attracting lateral partners). Instead, the primary value of the business plan, particularly for the solo practice or small firm drafting one for the first time, lies in the fact that it forces the firm to think about business issues that it otherwise would not have considered.

As the D.C. Bar says in its advice to startup law offices : “The act of planning helps you think things through thoroughly, study and research if you are not sure of the facts, and look at your ideas critically. It takes time now, but avoids costly, perhaps disastrous, mistakes later.”

Of course, a business plan does little for anyone if it is quickly forgotten. But the mere act of generating a business plan gives a firm a direction to head in and goals to point toward. If the firm makes it a practice to revisit the business plan on an annual basis (if not more regularly), its business considerations will stay top-of-mind and the firm will continually refine them in ways that improve its performance.

THE CONTENTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN

Creating a strong business plan will require an investment of time and energy. At the same time, no one wants to write, or read, a massive document. To improve the chances that the project gets done, and gets read, it is best to keep a business plan to a reasonable length. Anything over 20 pages may stretch attention spans to the breaking point, and there’s no harm in going shorter if you have covered all the territory you need to by that point.

So, what, exactly, is the territory that you should cover? Most authorities agree that a sound business plan for a law firm should address the following broad areas:

• Overview of the Firm

This section should include basic information about the firm: its name, legal structure, practice areas and leadership positions. It should also contain some deeper information about the firm's identity and aspirations.

This would include:

A mission statement about the firm’s purpose

A vision statement or recitation of medium- and long-term goals for the firm

Important aspects of the firm’s history

Any important philosophies that the firm brings to legal practice

• Market Analysis

This section should discuss the business trends affecting the firm’s important practice areas and clients. It should evaluate any technologies that are affecting your practice area and consider how the firm may leverage or keep up with them. This section should also devote substantial energy to identifying the firm’s major competitors in each of its important practice areas and comparing their services to the firm’s.

In this section, identify the firm’s major clients, breaking them down by important characteristics like size, location, industry and practice groups used. Go through a similar exercise for major client prospects and targets. It’s worth examining how the firm can improve its relationships with both of these groups.

Important financial information includes the firm’s fixed and variable costs, backward- and forward-looking revenue, realization rate, collection rate, monthly overhead, assets and liabilities. A 12-month profit and loss projection should be included and could be considered the heart of the business plan.

There is a great amount of detail that any firm could get into on this front. Don’t get overwhelmed by it; at the same time, this is some of the most important information in the business plan, so it’s not advisable to gloss over it.

This section will address key operational issues like the office lease, equipment purchases and technology plans. You may assign roles to various staff members for operational issues.

Think about what marketing the firm currently performs, how it obtains clients and what marketing goals it wants to set for the future.

After completing these and any other sections the firm might want to address, then go back and draft an executive summary to be included at the beginning of the business plan document. The summary should be professional, but don’t be afraid to give it some optimistic energy. After all, with your eyes on the business management fundamentals of your firm, things should be looking up for the future.

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Starting a law firm can be overwhelming – where do you start and how do you know you’re making the right decisions for your business? A business plan can help to guide you as you get your firm up and running and even as it continues to grow. So what goes into a business plan and how do you write one?

Below, we’ll walk you through each step of writing your business plan so you can get your firm on the path to success.

Table of Contents

What Is a Business Plan?

Before we dive into the details of how to write your business plan, let’s talk about what a business plan is. A business plan details exactly what you want to achieve with your firm and how you’ll meet those goals. It should include why you chose to start your firm, what your major goals are, your budget, how you’ll gain clients, and so on.

Why Is It Important?

Although it may seem tedious, taking the time to write out a business plan is a critical step in establishing your firm. It will be your roadmap as you grow your business, helping you stay on track and achieve what you want with your firm. Instead of making decisions on the fly based on gut feelings, you’ll be making educated decisions based on your plan.

It’s important to note that your business plan may not stay exactly the same. As you’re writing it, you may find that certain approaches you had planned to use won’t work. And as your business continues to grow and change, you may find that you need to rewrite certain parts of your business plan.

Draft Your Executive Summary

The first piece of the business plan for your law firm is an executive summary. This summary should be one page long and should give a high-level overview of all the key points of your business plan. Ironically, it may be easiest to draft your executive summary at the end of the business plan writing process.

There are a few key components you should include in your executive summary.

Primary Goals

Take a look at the overall goals you want to achieve with your firm. What does success look like for you, and what kind of impact do you want to make with your business? Why are you launching this firm in the first place, and where do you want it to be in five years?

Examples of goals for your firm can include: “Close twenty-five cases a year,” “Grow to a firm of eight to ten lawyers,” or “Gain a reputation as a top law firm in the area.” Remember, focusing on SMART goals can be helpful during this stage. 

Mission Statement

It’s also important to write a mission statement for your law firm. This statement should be two to three sentences long and should succinctly state your firm’s reason for opening and what it’s trying to accomplish. This may include the sort of service you want to provide for your clients, as well as the impact you want to have on your community.

A sample mission statement may be:

John Smith & Associates fights for the people, working to help accident victims get full and fair compensation for their injuries. Our lawyers are tireless as we gather evidence to support the client’s story and negotiate with insurance companies, and we fight for every single case like it was our own.

Your mission statement will later be published on your website, so make sure it’s written from a client-focused perspective.

Core Values

You’ll need to take some time during your business planning process to write down the core values that you’ll use to guide your company. These are what your employees will think about when interacting with customers and what you’ll refer back to when making decisions. Your core values should reflect both your beliefs as an employer and the goals you laid out for your firm.

An example of core values might include, 

We go above and beyond for our clients, focusing on how this injury impacts their life and doing everything in our power to get them the compensation they deserve. We are always looking for opportunities to improve, and we will never settle for ‘close enough.’ We will stay on the cutting edge of the field, always striving to provide the best, easiest process for our clients.

Unique Selling Proposition

The final piece of your executive summary is your unique selling proposition. There are about 135,000 personal injury lawyers in the United States. Why should your clients choose you over all the other lawyers in your area?

Your unique selling proposition may include the years of experience your team has, any awards you’ve won, and how much you’ve recovered for previous clients. If anyone on your team has experience working on the other side of the industry (e.g., defending insurance companies) that unique perspective can also be a selling point. Overall, this proposition should answer the question, “Why should I hire you to handle my case?”

Write a Firm Description

Your firm description will begin to dive into more detail about how your business will operate and what sort of services you’ll offer.

Location and Areas Served

It’s a good idea to start by discussing where you’ll locate your firm and what areas you’ll serve. Depending on where you live and the number of states you’re licensed in, this can be a relatively broad geographic area. It’s important to find a balance between casting a broad enough net to get a good client pool and stretching yourself too thin.

You may want to pick one central location for your firm that will serve as your headquarters and then expand your areas of service to the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Legal Structure and Ownership

You’ll also need to figure out the legal structure of your business and how ownership will work. Will you operate as an LLC, a partnership, or a sole proprietorship? If you plan to operate as an LLC or a partnership, who will be the members/partners at the time of launch?

A sole proprietorship gives you total control of your business, but it does tie your business assets to your personal assets, meaning you can be held personally liable for debts and obligations of the business. A partnership can give unlimited liability to one partner and limited liability (as well as limited control in the business) to all partners. An LLC protects all owners from full liability and also comes with tax advantages.

Client Approach

This is also the moment to decide how you want to approach client service. This will be the face you present to clients, as well as a guiding principle in your legal strategies. As such, your client approach should be connected to your core values, mission statement, and primary goals.

For example, your client approach might be:

We treat every client’s case as we would like our own to be handled. We are tireless in pursuing justice and will advocate fiercely for our clients with insurance agencies and in courtrooms.

Firm History

Even though this is the beginning of your firm’s operation, it’s still a good idea to write down a history of your firm. Starting this document now will give you something to work from as you continue to document your firm’s story. It can also be a good addition to your website.

At the beginning, your firm history will be a little closer to a bio. Talk about your education, including any honors you received during your undergraduate or law school years. You can also dive into any previous legal experience you have, as well as why you decided to start your own law firm.

Conduct Market Analysis

Now that you have a good grasp on how your firm will be structured, it’s time to turn your attention to where it will sit in the market. This research will give you an idea of how to bring in clients and beat out the competition. It will also help to guide your marketing strategy later on in the business plan.

Industry Description

Start your market analysis by writing a description of your local industry. This should include the current size of the legal market your firm is in, as well as its projected growth over the next few years. How many competitors will you be facing, and how many potential clients will you all be competing for?

Your industry description should include the population of the area you plan to serve, as well as the number of lawyers in your particular niche. Information about how many cases are likely to appear in your area may also be helpful. For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, knowing the number of car accidents that happen each year in your area, as well as how many of those cause severe injuries, can be helpful.

Target Audience

Once you have a better picture of your overall industry, it’s time to start identifying your target audience. You may want to write a target customer profile as part of this process. The more specific you can get with this description, the easier it will be to fine-tune your marketing messaging.

Your target customer description should include your ideal client’s gender, age range, economic status, and circumstances that led them to need a lawyer. You may also include their level of education, the type of job they might hold, whether they have families, and so on. 

Demographic Motivation

With your target customer description nailed down, you’ll want to start delving a little deeper into their motivations. What do they look for in a lawyer, and why do they choose one firm over another? What is their primary goal in pursuing their case, and what will they view as a successful result?

When you understand this motivation, you’ll be able to target your marketing to answer those desires. You can also decide which clients will be a good fit for your firm. When you know what demographic motivation you want to look for in a client, you can refer those who have different motivations to another firm that may be a better fit for them.

Competitive Analysis

At this point in your business plan, you’ll want to take a closer look at your competition. During the industry description section, you should have tallied up roughly how many lawyers in your niche are practicing in your area. Now you’ll need to spend some time digging into the top two or three who will be your primary competition.

Determine which firms provide the same services you do, hold the largest market share in your area, or are located near your offices. Once you have your shortlist of competitors, start doing your research into them, examining how they approach their marketing and branding and what sort of unique value proposition they offer their clients. From there, you can decide how you’ll set yourself apart from them and earn clients’ trust.

Expected Costs

You’ve got your industry, audience, and competition figured out, so now it’s time to turn your attention to finances. You’ll need to know how much to expect to spend per case. This number can vary by market, so it’s a good idea to research expected costs in your area.

Your expected cost calculations should include the expenses you’ll accrue in acquiring the case, as well as the average fees that will go into closing the case. This will help you decide how you need to set up your fee structure when you get to the financial plan stage of your business plan.

Set Up Your Organization and Management Overview

At this stage, it will be time to turn your attention to how your organization will be set up and managed. 

Partners and Staff

The first thing you’ll need to decide is how many partners you’ll have and how many staff you need. Remember, as your firm grows, this number can change. And depending on the size of your firm when you’re just starting out, you may have only yourself as a partner and no staff.

If you do have more than one person in your firm, decide who will be partners and who will be associate attorneys. From there, you can start figuring out how many people you’ll need on staff to support your attorneys – paralegals, intake specialists, administrative assistants, and so on.

Educational Background

At this stage, you’ll also want to start writing bios for all your attorneys. This content will be useful to include on your website, as well as on attorney review websites. You can start by writing up some information about everyone’s educational background.

Begin by discussing your undergraduate education, including what you majored in and any significant accomplishments you earned during that time. Then move on to your law school education. Be sure to include any awards you earned, academic groups you belonged to, and any accolades you received.

After you finish the education section of your bios, it will be time to start outlining your experience. This can start with any clerkships you completed during or after law school. You should also include any internships you participated in, as well as any previous legal jobs you’ve held.

It may sound counterintuitive, but if you have experience working on the opposing side of your field, you may want to highlight that in your bio. For instance, you may be a personal injury lawyer who previously worked in insurance defense or a criminal defense attorney who was previously a prosecutor. Having this experience can give you a unique insight into the tactics your opponents will likely use in court and can be a draw for potential clients.

Qualifications for Leadership

Finally, you’ll want to round off your attorney profiles by discussing the particular qualifications for leadership each partner has. Why are they in charge of the firm, and what particular strengths do they bring to the organization? Do they have previous leadership experience, and what is their management style?

Determine Which Specific Services You’ll Offer

With your organizational chart complete, you’ll need to start determining which specific services you’ll offer.

Problems You Plan to Address

Rather than just listing off services willy-nilly, it’s best to start this section by discussing the problems you want to address with your firm. If you’re a criminal defense lawyer, maybe you want to help people avoid unjust prison sentences. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, you might want to stand up against the insurance companies cheating injury victims out of their rights.

Lay out the problems you want to fix in your community and why. Dig into which injustices rankle the most for you and what you would like to see happen in these cases. Consider which specific pain points your potential clients experience and discuss how you’ll address those issues.

Solutions You’ll Provide

Once you know what problems you want to fix, you can start brainstorming about what solutions you’d like to provide. Make sure to delve into how your solutions will better resolve your clients’ needs and address their pain points. Refer back to the list of problems you just made as you’re deciding what solutions you want to tackle.

It’s also a good idea to discuss the benefits your services will provide to your clients and why they would choose you over another firm. What makes your services unique, and is there a particular niche you plan to focus on?

Overview of Your Competition

The conversation of which service to offer will naturally include discussion of the services your competitors offer. You’ll need to see what services you’ll be competing against, as well as any gaps they may have in their service offerings. If no one else in your area is currently handling a certain type of case, you’ll have a unique opportunity to corner the market.

You should also look for any pain points clients may be experiencing with these specific competitors. Do they have reviews that complain about poor customer service or a misrepresentation of costs? These are opportunities for you to get an edge on your competitors and provide a better experience for clients.

Unoffered Services

At this stage, you will also need to decide which services you don’t want to offer. This may include an entire class of cases or simply cases that don’t meet certain thresholds. Choosing not to offer these services doesn’t mean you’re limiting your business; it just means that you’re focusing on the cases that will bring the best value to your firm.

Establish Your Marketing Strategy

By now, you should be starting to get a good handle on your firm and how it will work. So it’s time to turn your attention to your marketing strategy.

Positioning

Start by taking a look at your unique selling proposition that you drafted and using it to decide what positioning you’ll use for your marketing. Your positioning is the starting point for your marketing and the way you’ll portray your firm to potential clients. This will be connected to your unique selling proposition, your mission statement, your core values, your target client, and your client approach.

Will you position yourself as a reliable, trustworthy legal service provider who will approach each case with compassion and care? Or will you take the stance of a fierce advocate who will be tough on the opposition and go to the mat fighting for your client? The ads you run will be very different depending on what tone you decide to go with.

Promotion Channels

You’ll also need to spend some time thinking about what promotion channels you want to use to market your firm. There are plenty of options, from traditional advertising like television and radio to social media to more creative marketing outlets. You may want to run billboards, bus ads, or even truck ads with companies like InMotion .

Traditional promotion channels can be a great way to reach a broader audience, but they are more expensive. Social media is much more affordable, but you may see a somewhat lower conversion rate. And the more creative outlets may be a little rarer to find, but they can help to reach all new segments of your target market.

Of course, you’ll need to settle on a budget for your marketing efforts. This will impact every part of your marketing strategy, including which channels you use. It will also depend heavily on both your firm size and your location; if you’re in a major city, your marketing budget will need to be a lot bigger than if you’re in a more rural area.

As part of your budget, you need to plan to take a marketing “tax” out of every dollar of revenue you make. A percentage of all these profits should get funneled right back into your marketing. This will help your business to keep growing and will keep your marketing budget on track with that growth.

Before you launch your marketing strategy, you need to decide which key performance indicators you’ll be using to measure your success. You’ll use these as time goes on to tweak your marketing strategy and make sure it’s working well for you. You may need to adjust the channels you’re marketing through, shift your budget, change your messaging, and so on.

There are dozens of KPIs you can track, depending on your particular goals and which marketing channels you’re using. You may want to track your email open rate, your social media engagement rate, your ROI on marketing, your total cost of acquisition per client, and so on. 

Create a Financial Plan

The final step in writing your business plan will be to create your financial plan. This will lay out where all the money in your firm will come from, where it will go, and what the end result will be.

Starting Capital

You may have heard the phrase “You have to spend money to make money,” and that applies to starting a law firm. You need to have some starting capital to get your firm off the ground, and laying out where these funds will come from is an important part of your business plan. 

Start by making a list of financial resources you’ll be drawing on to launch your business. This may include personal savings accounts, loans from family or friends, investments from financial benefactors, or bank loans. Estimate how much money you’ll be able to pull from each source other than loans and then determine how much you’ll need to borrow to get your firm going.

Monthly Operating Costs

Next, you’ll need to estimate how much it will cost you to keep your firm running each month. This will be the starting point to determine how much revenue you’ll need to bring in in order to keep growing and turn a profit.

Your monthly operating costs may include office space rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, software costs, salaries, and tech maintenance. You may also need to factor in any CLE costs, marketing expenses, branding costs, web design and maintenance, and more. Get as detailed as you can with this section – little details like office supplies or cleaning fees can add up in a hurry.

Number of Cases You Need to Close

Once you have a full estimate of your monthly operating costs, you can start figuring out how many cases you’ll need to close per year to keep up with your costs. Part of this calculation will include estimating how much revenue you’ll earn from each case. You also need to consider how many cases you’ll be able to reasonably handle with the staff size you currently have.

Try to be both specific and realistic in this section. Estimating your revenue will help you ensure that you’re bringing in enough money to stay afloat. Make sure each lawyer in your firm has a large enough caseload to keep them consistently busy without overwhelming them and base your case closure number on that.

Projected Profit and Loss

The final step in writing your financial plan (at least the first draft) will be drawing up a projected profit and loss statement . Your profits will include the net revenue from all the cases you close (your revenue minus any costs you accrued to acquire and close the case). Your losses will include all the operating expenses you listed out earlier. 

Your profit and loss statement can help you figure out how to optimize your firm’s spending. Look for any losses you can cut without compromising the client experience or your firm’s effectiveness. And make sure you’re getting the maximum reasonable profit from your staff and attorneys. 

It’s important to note that this first financial plan you write is far from the last version you’ll write. Your financial plan will need to change as your firm grows and as you get more grounded ideas of what these details look like. Using this framework and updating your financial plan on a regular basis can help you keep your firm on track for success.

Additional Resources

Writing a business plan can help you figure out not only who your firm is and what you want to accomplish with it, but also how it will operate day-to-day. Start by outlining your firm’s goals and describing who you plan to serve. Then conduct some market analysis, set up your organizational structure, decide on what services you’ll offer, establish your marketing strategy, and create a financial plan.

If you’d like to find more resources to grow your firm the smart way, check out the rest of our resource pages. We cover everything from how to manage SEO to PPC advertising and more. And if you’d like to start getting honesty, transparency, and results from your marketing firm, reach out to us at LawRank!

Up Next: Breaking down Google ranking factors

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Chapter 3/6

Developing a Business Plan for a New Law Firm

How to Start a Law Firm

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A law firm business plan is the foundation for everything your business does. Without a solid foundation, your firm will lack direction from the very beginning.

Starting a Law Firm Business Plan

A good business plan includes:

• Vision. Create a picture of what you’re building.
• Values. Identify the rules to guide your team’s important work. 
• Law Firm Business Model. What you offer, who you offer it to, and how you’ll deliver your services.
• Targets and Priorities. Clarify metrics that indicate success.

Law Firm Vision

We worked with a lawyer who was stressed out about his vision. He spent weeks on the assignment because he couldn’t think of a statement that would make his entire office happy. 

During one coaching session , he got that lightbulb moment when we told him that he was making too big of a deal of it. You don’t have to create the most amazing vision that perfectly captures everything you are hoping to build. You do need to start mapping out what you are (and aren’t) trying to create. 

Picture these two lawyers:

• Lawyer 1 wants to double the size of his team in the next two years so he can handle more cases, help more people, and make more money.
• Lawyer 2 does not enjoy managing people. She wants to build a technology-based solution that she can offer clients with a recurring monthly price and that is delivered using a few key team members.

Neither vision is wrong. But, how each lawyer will make decisions to build a profitable business will look very different. You need to get a sense if you are trying to build something that looks more like Lawyer 1, Lawyer 2, or Lawyers 3-8. Get it? 

Jot down thoughts now so you know where you’re headed and can start building the guardrails for future decisions.

Law Firm Values

Your values are a living embodiment of the firm culture you’re hoping to create and the approach to work your team shares. They are the guardrails of your business. 

From hiring to client management to a marketing strategy, every decision you make comes from your values. 

Your values are typically 3-6 factual statements that are authentically you. 

Here are some tips on crafting great values:

• Your values must concretely point to your business. You want achievable values that set your business up for success .
• Your values must have actual meaning. Like the “be the best lawyer” example, you want to avoid the obvious. Sure, every firm wants to be the best. But what, precisely, does your firm want to do that sets you apart from the crowd?
• Finally, avoid table stakes values. Honesty, integrity, and hard work are all good works that all companies should have. But, they have nothing to do with your specific goals vs. any other firm.

As an example, here are Lawyerist’s values :

• Build an Inclusive Community.
• Experiment Like a Lobster.
• Grab the Marker.
• Seek Candor.
• Grow as People.

Each of these represents the culture of our company (even “ Experiment Like a Lobster ,” which describes our playful and out-of-the-box thinking process). We use these values for all of our decisions, especially hiring. When we evaluate a candidate, we study their fit: Are they open to experimenting? Are they willing to help us build an inclusive community ? Are they eager to lean into candor and compassion ?

Building your vision and values is an essential first step for your business. We can’t tell you how much easier other decisions will flow once you have these documented. You will make better decisions and alleviate some of the anxiety of decision fatigue.

Law Firm Business Model

One of the biggest perks of starting your firm is deciding your law firm business plan and model. You get to take everything you learned in school and while working at other organizations and implement the parts you like. Even better, you get to leave out the details that stressed you out.

This is an excellent place to review your vision and values. Take the time to dream about this. This is often the most rewarding part for new law firm owners. With a smart strategy, you can build your dream firm.

Ask yourself:

• What kind of place do I want to work in every day? 
• What kind of clients do I want to serve? Who is my ideal client ?
• What type of pricing model do I want? 
• What kind of access to justice issues do I want to tackle?

You get the gist. The questions you can ask yourself here are endless, but use your vision and values to inform your model. For example, if one of your values is “ grow as people ,” you might offer education opportunities for clients in areas related to their cases. 

The important part is, it’s all up to you. This is yours. You get to decide.

Competitive Analysis

As part of finalizing your law firm business model, it can be very helpful to complete a competitive analysis. A competitive analysis not only forces you to define who your competitors are, it gives you a chance to determine what may be missing in the market so that you can address it. 

Lawyers often assume as long as they practice law, there’s a market for what they want to do. Or they think they’re only competing against other lawyers when clients are often drawn to non-law solutions. 

These lawyers are missing a huge opportunity. They aren’t asking clients how they heard about their firm. They’re not trying to figure out what other solutions their clients tried first. They aren’t looking at what clients want and how the market is attempting to respond.

Here are some tips for putting together a competitive analysis:

• Make a list of competitors. Simple, right? List firms in your practice area/location, your jurisdiction, and who may be serving your ideal client base.
• List the other ways your clients are solving their problems . Are they use an online service to create their will? Are they asking their cousin’s nephew’s wife, who once worked at a law firm in 1988, for advice? Get creative.
• Do field research . Ask your friends, family, and current clients what they do when they have a potential legal problem.

Once you’ve collected the data, you can begin the analysis. Think about the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor and the solution you’ve collected. Compare pricing, accessibility, marketing messages, and client service. How does it all compare to your firm? What do you do better? What could you improve?

And keep in mind: This isn’t a one-time deal. You’ll want to stay on top of competitive solutions through Google or social media alerts or by subscribing to industry emails and newsletters. At least once a year, do a complete forensic competitive analysis to see where things have changed.

Targets and Priorities

When you’re first starting a law firm business plan, you may just have a goal of “get my firm up and running.” A good goal! But, as you dream on your initial strategy, it’s helpful to set some initial short-term and excellent long-term goals. Yes, these goals may change as you learn and grow. But, setting goals upfront will give you a path to get started.

Short-term Goals

Look to your initial vision and values for your first goals. If you’re a family law firm that wants to do low-conflict divorces, you might have a client acquisition goal aligned with this.

For example, you could say: In the first six months of my firm opening, I want 50% of my new clients to be low-conflict separations and divorces. You’ll see this goal follows the S.M.A.R.T. formula: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound. 

Another short-term goal might be systems-oriented: I want a written client onboarding process documented in my first three months. (If not implemented.)

Think through all the different parts of your business and see if you can achieve one short-term goal.

Long-term Goals

Long-term goals can be a little trickier when you’re first starting. Thinking one, two, or even five years out might seem impossible. But this is where you can begin to dream a little.

A long-term goal might be that in three years, you want a staff of five people, a complete operations manual, 50 new clients a year, and Fridays off each week. 

Remember, these goals might—and likely will—change. But give yourself something to work with in the beginning.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

As you’re starting a law firm business plan, you’ll need  a way to measure your firm’s health. These measurements are called KPIs. They track goals in all parts of your business, from marketing to finances to client acquisition .

Measuring and monitoring your KPIs will allow you to:

• Monitor the health of your firm . KPIs will enable you to see how well your law firm is performing. For example, KPIs make it easy to track your finances and your firm’s monthly growth.  You’ll see problems and successes quickly and be able to take action by creating new goals or redirecting your team’s efforts.
• Simplify decision-making . Armed with the above information, you can make informed, rational decisions for everything in your business. You don’t have to guess if a decision is the right one. Instead, you can (and should) measure all variables to make the best decision for your firm’s future.
• Track your wins. By tracking your KPIs, you track your wins. Monitoring law firm data makes it simple to incentivize your staff’s hard work. After all, when you meet your numbers, everyone benefits.

For example, at Lawyerist, we track KPIs with a color-coded system.

Green means hitting our goal, yellow means we’re on the cusp, and red means not hitting the number. We track weekly, which means when something goes yellow, we can analyze and plan before it goes red.

And, because we track weekly, a one-week red doesn’t mean an emergency. It means we need to take time to discuss, find a cause, and make a plan.

Types of KPIs for Successful Firms

KPIs can cover all aspects of your business, including your finances, client satisfaction, marketing, and business development. Keep in mind, as you start your firm, KPIs will be new to you and can feel overwhelming. So, keep it simple in the beginning. 

Start by picking three business questions you want answered. Find a way to measure that answer that you can track and update without too much work regularly. Then, start measuring. As your firm grows, you’ll develop your KPIs.

Let’s look at some examples.

Financial KPIs

Want to increase your revenue or improve your law firm’s financial health? You’ll want to track some financial KPIs , including (but not limited to):

• Revenue (cash collected)
• Monthly amount invoiced to clients
• Accounts receivable (amount clients owe you)
• Budgeted expenses

Regardless of your goals, we recommend tracking some basic financial data to keep an eye on the health of your firm. For a quick win, narrow down your financial KPIs to the top three financial numbers  needed to understand your business.

Client Satisfaction KPIs

Your clients are your most valuable assets. Firm success requires that you watch specific metrics involving your clients. 

Client satisfaction KPIs connect to several key law firm growth goals. These include increasing referrals, increasing revenue (happy clients are loyal clients), and improving overall client experience. 

Examples of KPIs to track include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Client retention rate
• Speed at which you close cases

Your Net Promoter Score measures whether current or former clients would recommend your legal services to others. A satisfied client is more likely to do so. This metric is most often gathered using a survey at the final delivery of your services.

Other measures, such as closing speed and retention, can give you insights into how happy your clients are with your services. Do you have a lower NPS than you expect? Are you losing clients? If so, your client satisfaction is low, and you could take action to improve it.

Marketing and Business Development KPIs

Is your current marketing strategy working? Without measuring KPIs, there’s no way of knowing. By tracking marketing metrics for your firm, you can see your marketing strategy’s performance and tweak where needed. 

Some of these metrics include:

• Organic traffic to your website
• Number of leads generated
• Conversion rates
• Acquisition costs/return on investment (ROI)

For example, if you see your website traffic trending down, some fresh content might do the trick. Or, if you see low conversion rates yet high traffic, your website isn’t inspiring potential clients to give you a call. You might need to change your call-to-actions or refresh your website.

Marketing and business development go hand-in-hand—as they’re both critical to achieving long-term growth goals.

Some examples of business development metrics to track include:

• Number of new clients each month
• Competitor pricing
• Sales cycle length
• Number of leads that turn into consultations

Profitability KPIs and Law Firm Financial Ratios

Every law firm should have a documented long-term financial strategy and profitability model. Any healthy business has a written plan to forecast revenue, expenses, net profit, and cash reserves. To ensure you follow through with your plan, track your firm’s profitability and financial KPIs.

And where should you track these KPIs? Don’t think too hard on that one. At Lawyerist, we use a Google Sheets  spreadsheet with a few simple formulas. Track anywhere that makes sense for your firm .

Next, we’ll outline how to use legal technology successfully.

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Law Firm Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Law Firm Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your Law Firm business plan.

We have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their Law Firms.

Below is a template to help you create each section of your Law Firm business plan.

Executive Summary

Business overview.

The Harris & Harris Law Firm is a startup up business that provides legal advice and services for clients located within the Scottsdale, Arizona region. The company is founded by Roger Harris and his son, Anthony. Roger Harris has been a partner in a well-established company, Foundations Law Firm, for over twenty years. Anthony Harris is a recent law school graduate who will begin his training under the scholarship of his father. With the extensive list of former clients in hand, Roger and Anthony are confident they can begin open their doors for business and grow the new law firm successfully.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide a comprehensive array of services for individuals or business entities who need advice and/or legal representation in court proceedings. Harris & Harris will provide a multi-prong approach to fashion specific solutions for each individual they represent; in that regard, all services are custom-packaged and provided for clients by the lawyers at Harris & Harris. This unique factor will set them above all other area lawyers, as most follow standard processes within the companies where they work.

Product Offering

The following are the services that Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide:

• Client-centric efforts in every case until resolution is found
• Unique process to fully explore client options in any dispute
• Creative and sustainable solutions on a case-by-case basis
• Prioritization of client needs above all else
• Dedication to professionalism and honesty
• Equally dedicated to securing the correct outcomes for our clients
• Team of highly-skilled lawyers who create winning solutions

Customer Focus

Harris & Harris will target the residents of Scottsdale, Arizona. They will also target medium-to-large businesses within Scottsdale, Arizona. They will target former associates and lawyers with whom they can collaborate in the future. They will target residents who have been served a summons for civil or criminal case appearances, whether as a witness, interested party or a potential defendant.

Management Team

Harris & Harris will be owned and operated by Roger Harris. He recruited his son, Anthony, to join the new firm upon Anthony’s recent graduation from law school. Within the next ten years, depending on performance, Anthony will receive incremental distributions of up to 49% of the company value in private stock. This will be based on Anthony’s performance and growth in the company as his role expands.

Roger Harris was formerly a partner in a well-established company, Foundations Law Firm, for over twenty years. He practiced law in the personal law arena, including wills and probates, trusts and other forms of personal law. He also managed the real estate law team at his former place of employment. Roger’s role in Harris & Harris will be the President, with the primary responsibility of driving new client traffic to the company. Roger has recruited Anthony, Richard Cummings, and Torey Crouch to begin their employment at Harris & Harris, as well.

Anthony Harris is a recent law school graduate who will begin his training under the scholarship of his father. Anthony will specialize in a unique processing of individual cases by creating algorithms that will specify which outcomes will best serve the client. Anthony will also represent clients in court and assist in defense appearances. With the extensive list of former clients in hand and the unique processes they’ve designed for clients going forward, Roger and Anthony are confident they can begin and grow the new law firm successfully.

Richard Cummings, a former associate of Roger Harris, will take on the role of Managing Partner in the launch of Harris & Harris. He will oversee all junior partners and staff, as the total number of lawyers grows expeditiously over the first few years.

Torey Crouch, a former law student with Anthony Cummings, will take on the role of Research & Records Manager, as she will form the background work necessary for all the other lawyers on staff.

Success Factors

Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

• Friendly, knowledgeable, and highly-qualified team of Harris & Harris Law Firm
• Comprehensive menu of services designed to provide specific customer-centric solutions
• Specializations in real estate, trusts, probate, civil and criminal law are all offered under this multi-pronged services of Harris & Harris Law Firm
• Harris & Harris offers family discounts and other forms of packages for clients.
• Harris & Harris offers a “monthly pay” program for clients who need to spread out payments over time.

Financial Highlights

Harris & Harris Law Firm is seeking $200,000 in debt financing to launch its Harris & Harris Law Firm. The funding will be dedicated toward securing the office space and purchasing office equipment and supplies. Funding will also be dedicated toward three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and marketing costs for the print ads and marketing costs. The breakout of the funding is below:

• Office space build-out: $20,000
• Office equipment, supplies, and materials: $10,000
• Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities): $150,000
• Marketing costs: $10,000
• Working capital: $10,000

The following graph outlines the financial projections for Harris & Harris Law Firm.

Company Overview

Who is harris & harris law firm.

Harris & Harris Law Firm is a newly established, full-service law firm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Harris & Harris Law Firm will be the most reliable, solution-centric and effective choice for clients in Scottsdale and the surrounding communities. Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide a comprehensive menu of attorney services for any individual, family or business to utilize. Their full-service approach includes a comprehensive array of services that are uniquely prepared for each client.

  Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to serve the residents and businesses of Scottsdale. The team of professionals are highly qualified and experienced in all aspects of the law and several permutations of legal representation. Harris & Harris Law Firm removes all headaches and issues of securing a comprehensive law firm that is reliable and dedicated to clients, and ensures all issues are taken care of expeditiously, while delivering the best customer service.

Harris & Harris Law Firm History

Since incorporation, Harris & Harris Law Firm has achieved the following milestones:

• Registered Harris & Harris Law Firm, LLC to transact business in the state of Arizona.
• Has a contract for 10,000 square feet of office space midtown Scottsdale office buildings
• Reached out to numerous former clients and contacts to consider Harris & Harris for all their legal representation needs.
• Began recruiting a staff of five lawyers and three office personnel to work at Harris & Harris.

Harris & Harris Law Firm Services

The following will be the services Harris & Harris Law Firm will provide:

• Dedication to professionalism and honest dialogue

Industry Analysis

The law firm industry is expected to grow over the next five years to over $75 billion. The growth will be driven by an increased population requiring legal representation The growth will be driven by the increase of income for individuals, which can support the decision to hire representation. The growth will be driven by the increase in faulty or misleading documents, agreements, and certifications. The growth will be driven by legal firms who collect fees for business mergers and negotiations. Costs will likely be reduced as current technology becomes dated and new, higher-performing technological advances are employed.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market, customer segmentation.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will primarily target the following customer profiles:

• Residents of Scottsdale region
• Businesses within Scottsdale region
• Former associates and clients with whom they can collaborate
• Individuals or businesses that have been served with a summons to appear in court

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

Diamond & Johnson Defense

Diamond & Johnson Defense is a law firm located in Phoenix, Arizona. The firm was established in 1998 and has three partners who oversee all cases: Robert Anderson, who is a lead criminal defense attorney; Lisa Martinez, who is a criminal appeals and post-conviction relief attorney, and David Collin, an investigations and trial preparation lawyer. The law firm has a total of six attorneys who specialize in criminal defense, and six office staff, who communicate directly with each lawyer on staff.

Diamond & Johnson Defense is known as “The Defendant’s Law Firm” in Scottsdale, as 99% of the law practice is focused on personal law representation in civil or criminal court cases. The law firm charges fees within the top 5% in the county for personal representation. The years of practice have proven to be winning ones for Diamond & Johnson Defense, as over 69% of their clients have been released without any prison time. The team at D & J Defense are known to be highly-skilled at investigations and trial preparation, with several team members who will take on a single case to thoroughly cover every possible defense for each client.

Legacy Law Associates

Legacy Law Associates is well-known as a “compassionate” team of attorneys, specializing in family wills and trusts. With a team of dedicated and experienced attorneys, the firm aims to provide comprehensive legal services that meet the goals of each client or family who need legal services during a difficult season of life. Legacy Law Associates consists of a partnership of two attorneys, Jonathan Dunlap and David Sessions, who established the law firm in 2005 in Phoenix after graduating from law school together. Together, the co-owners seek families who have legal needs after the death of a family member; such as estate negotiations, final documents and closures, trustee assistance, probate searches, and confidential proceedings per the will of any individual. The law firm has hired a private secretary for each partner and is housed in a small office in downtown Phoenix. The firm has not grown since 2007 and does not choose to make that a pivotal goal for their partnership, relying instead on the on-going legal processes of trusts, wills, probate and other related items.

Construction Defect Law Firm

The Construction Defect Law Firm is owned and operated by Chip Jackson and is located in Green Valley, Arizona. The focus of the law firm is to represent homeowners who have determined a new or nearly-new home contains construction defects. In most cases, the home builder has moved on from the geographic region and, even when contacted repeatedly, is unwilling to rectify the situation by repair or monetary refund.

Chip Jackson is a highly-skilled evaluator and contractor within the construction industry. He is able to determine the viability of most construction issues with merely a cursory examination and has proven over the past ten years to be a worthy adversary in the courtroom. He wins 98% of all cases he brings into the courtroom. Chip’s clients are always homeowners who have been victims of construction defects in homes that are typically new or less than ten years old. His skill set includes negotiation outside the courtroom, compelling videos of problematic construction processes, drone footage of damaged rooftops, chimneys and other areas not typically viewed by homeowners and other support graphics that demonstrate the defects of the property.

Competitive Advantage

Harris & Harris Law Firm will be able to offer the following advantages over their competition:

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

Harris & Harris Law Firm will offer the unique value proposition to its clientele:

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Harris & Harris Law Firm is as follows:

Word of Mouth/Referrals

Harris & Harris Law Firm has built up an extensive list of contacts over the years by providing exceptional service and expertise to former clients and associates. This group will follow Roger and Anthony to their new company and help spread the word of Harris & Harris Law Firm.

Professional Associations and Networking

Harris & Harris Law Firm will take an active role in all community organizations and networking events, where they can spread the word about the launch and start of their company. The law firm will offer an Open House specifically for association members to acquaint the city of Scottsdale with their new services and location.

Website/SEO Marketing

Harris & Harris Law Firm will fully utilize their website. The website will be well organized, informative, and list all the services that Harris & Harris Law Firm provides. The website will also list their contact information and list their available reservation times to meet with one of the attorney’s for an initial consultation. The website will employ SEO marketing tactics so that anytime someone types in the Google or Bing search engine “law firm services” or “lawyer near me”, Harris & Harris Law Firm will be listed at the top of the search results.

The pricing of Harris & Harris Law Firm will be moderate and on par with competitors so customers feel they receive excellent value when purchasing their services.

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for Harris & Harris Law Firm. Operation Functions:

• Roger Harris will be the Owner and President of the company. He will engage and manage new client relations.
• Anthony Harris will be the Legal Outcomes & Research Manager for the company. He will work with clients to craft potential outcomes based on algorithms and research.
• Richard Cummings will take on the role of Managing Partner and, as such, will oversee junior partners and staff, as the total number of staff lawyers is expected to markedly grow in the coming five years.
• Torey Crouch will take on the role of Research & Records Manager, where she will support and provide research for all junior and senior attorney staff members. She will also oversee the office personnel.

Milestones:

Harris & Harris Law Firm will have the following milestones completed in the next six months.

• 5/1/202X – Finalize contract to lease office space
• 5/15/202X – Finalize personnel and staff employment contracts for the Harris & Harris Law Firm
• 6/1/202X – Finalize contracts for Harris & Harris Law Firm clients
• 6/15/202X – Begin networking at association meetings and industry events
• 6/22/202X – Begin moving into Harris & Harris Law Firm office
• 7/1/202X – Harris & Harris Law Firm opens its office for business

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Harris & Harris Law Firm are the fees they will charge to clients for the legal services and representation they provide.

The cost drivers will be the overhead costs required in order to staff Harris & Harris Law Firm. The expenses will be the payroll cost, rent, utilities, office supplies, and marketing materials.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Harris & Harris Law Firm is seeking $200,000 in debt financing to launch its law firm. The funding will be dedicated toward securing the office space and purchasing office equipment and supplies. Funding will also be dedicated toward three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and marketing costs for the print ads and association memberships. The breakout of the funding is below:

Key Assumptions

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and in order to pay off the startup business loan.

• Number of Clients Per Month: 125
• Average Revenue per Month: $325,000
• Office Lease per Year: $100,000

Financial Projections

Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, law firm business plan faqs, what is a law firm business plan.

A law firm business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your law firm business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can easily complete your Law Firm business plan using our Law Firm Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Law Firm Businesses? 

There are a number of different kinds of law firm businesses , some examples include: Commercial Law, Criminal, Civil Negligence, and Personal Injury Law, Real Estate Law, and Labor Law.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Law Firm Business Plan?

Law Firm businesses are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Start a Law Firm Business?

Starting a law firm business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Law Firm Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed law firm business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast. 

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your law firm business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your law firm business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Law Firm Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your law firm business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws.

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your law firm business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms.

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations.

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events.

7. Acquire Necessary Law Firm Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your law firm business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation.

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your law firm business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful law firm business:

• How to Start a Law Firm

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Law Firm Business Plan Sample

Jun.03, 2018

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Table of Content

Do you want to start a law firm business?

Do you plan to start a law firm business? There is no doubt this is an awesome business venture with amazing potential. In recent years, the law firm industry has been experiencing a steady growth of more than 15% per annum. The need for individuals, businesses and companies seeking for lawyer services in order not to get into legal problems has greatly increased. Today, there are many niches you can choose to start your practice on. All you need to have is the right qualification and target the right customers for your law firm business plan .

Executive Summary

2.1 the business.

The law firm will be registered under the names Raymond Associates, and will be situated in Houston, Texas. The law firm will be owned and managed by Alex Raymond who is a lawyer by profession.

2.2 Management Team

Alex Raymond is a lawyer by professional who has worked in the legal industry for more than fifteen years. Before coming up with a law firm business model, Alex worked for many to law firms across the United States and is an accomplished legal business service expert .

2.3 Customer Focus

Raymond Associates plans to offer different top notch legal services to customers in Houston, Texas. The customer focus will cater for different age groups and working class.

Once you have figured out how to start your own law firm, having an idea of the customer you intend to target is important. The customers you plan to target is essential for the growth of the business.

2.4 Business Target

Raymond Associates intends to offer services to a wide range of clientele keen on seeking legal services for their various needs. For a business to grow, it is important to carry out an in-depth research to target the right clientele.

Company Summary

3.1 company owner.

Alex Raymond is a lawyer professional who has worked with famous legal firms in the United States. In the course of his career, he ascended to the position of a seasoned attorney and took the lead role in planning the law firm operations and overseeing all management related aspects.

3.2 Aim of Starting the Business

After having been in the career long enough, Alex noticed there was a lot of potential in the legal industry in his home town Houston. That is the when he decided to move back to home and start a business plan for law firms . With a good business plan for law firms , Raymond Associates will indeed be one of the best law firms in Houston.

3.3 How the Business will be Started

As an expert in legal services, Alex understands what he needs to start the law firm. To set his idea into action, he has worked closely with businesses set-up experts to develop a financial plan for the law firm.

Services for Customers

Raymond Associates is focused on offering professional legal services to different type of clients. According to the starting a law firm business plan, the business is focused on offering the following services:

• Provide property law services to people facing mortgage, foreclosure and other property acquisition.
• Offer legal services to people suffering from personal injury. Employees’ injuries at work are extremely     sensitive and need a qualified lawyer to intervene.
• Provide legal services to couples going through a divorce.
• Offer legal services to people buying and selling businesses – acquisitions and mergers.

Marketing Analysis for Law Firm Business

For Raymond Associates to meet its market obligations, a detailed market analysis was done to help the business establish itself in the industry and adequately serve the needs of client. This law firm business plan explains the strategy the business will follow to attain its goals. Given the rising demand for various legal services, there is a great opportunity for Raymond Associates to meet its objectives.

5.1 Market Segmentation

Given the increasing popularity of law firms industry, Raymond Associates understands the value of coming up with sustainable marketing strategies to acquire a larger market share. Being one of the largest cities in the United States, Houston is a business hub with many individuals and companies looking for legal services. Based on the market findings and law firm business plan template, the law firm intends to target the following potential customers.

excellent work

excellent work, competent advice. Alex is very friendly, great communication. 100% I recommend CGS capital. Thank you so much for your hard work!

5.1.1 Couples

Marriage is a good thing but a time comes in life where people want to depart for various reasons. Nowadays, there is a high divorce rate in Texas, and for this reason Alex so it necessary to start a law office business plan to provide divorce legal services. When going through a divorce, you want to use a law firm that know how to handle sensitive issues. Raymond Associates highly trained attorneys and family law professionals will be dedicated to help people going through divorce to successfully navigate the family courts. If you have a family law case, it can be frustrating to sort through the maze of paperwork required to finish your case. Raymond Associates is ready to help though all the steps if filing a divorce, spousal support orders or custody issues among other services listed in the law firm business plan sample.

5.1.2 Property Owners

One of the main services offered by Raymond Associates is foreclosure and mortgage legal services. Whether it is mortgage, foreclosure or other property acquisition, Raymond Associates lawyers will help you go through that. The lawyers will offer the best advice and assist you throughout the whole process. The law firm will help file necessary documents and go through disputes that may arise between the transactions.

Business plan for investors

5.1.3 employees.

With so many companies and organization in Houston, Raymond Associates sample law firm business plan will target employees. When it comes to legal services involving employee injuries at work, these cases are usually sensitive and need a qualified lawyer to intervene. In most cases, employees feel oppressed in matters in regards to compensation and opt to use a lawyer. This is why Raymond Associates has a well inclusive personal injury law firm business plan to cater for such cases.

5.1.4 Businesses

According to the law firm marketing plan template, Raymond Associates will offer legal services to businesses to buying and selling businesses – acquisitions and mergers. With many individuals buying and selling businesses, it is important to use the services of a lawyer. A good law office will help you minimize taxes and potential liability issues for buyers and sellers figuring out how to structure a deal.

5.2 Business Target

Raymond Associates is getting into a highly competitive environment considering there are a high number of law firms in Houston. However, this small law firm business plan outlines the plan the business intends to use to acquire clients and propel business growth. It is costly to set up a fully functioning law firm, but adequate strategies have been put in place to help the business fully recover its initial capital. After finalizing the starting a law firm business and rolling out operations, the call centerexpects to recoup its initial investment in three years based on a projected 30-40% annual sales growth.

5.3 Product Pricing

While strategizing on how to start a law firm business plan , Alex Raymond together with the assistance of experts has come up with a competitive pricing structure tailored for different services. At the beginning, the call center intends to offer various incentives to attract clients.

When planning to start a law office, you need to come up with a great business development strategy . Alex Raymond has engaged experts to formulate a call center strategy that will be instrumental to steer business growth. He has also invested time to studying law firm proposal examples. The following is Raymond Associates law firm sales strategy.

6.1 Competitive Analysis

Raymond Associates has deployed the latest telemarketing technologies to boost efficiency and seamlessly handle multiple clients without compromising quality. After completing the procedures of how to build a law firm, the business anticipates high competition considering there are numerous similar establishments in Houston.

6.2 Sales Strategy

For Raymond Associates to achieve its intended targets and create a successful law office which is popular with clients, the following sales strategy will be implemented.

• Hire professional marketing agencies to help advertise the law firm and reach out to potential clients.
• Organize an official opening party and welcome top industry stakeholders to create awareness about the business
• Advertise on digital media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• Use local media channels such as Television and newspapers to advertise the business

6.3 Sales Forecast

Raymond Associates law firm has put in place various sales strategies in order to meet its targets. According to the law firm business plan example, the sales forecast looks promising for the business.

Personnel Plan

Raymond Associates provides diverse services in order to boost the company’s income. When coming up with a business plan for law firms , it is vital to focus on having a good personnel team to handle business operations.

7.1 Personnel Plan

The law firm is owned by Alex Raymond who will be the overall firm manager for the business. The law office intends to hire the following staff to enable the business carry out its operations.

• Administrator
• Operations Manager
• Two Marketing Executives
• Five Lawyers
• Three Advocates

Successful candidates will undergo intensive training to understand procedures and expectations.

7.2 Average Staff Salaries

Raymond Associates law office plans to pay its staff the following salaries in the first three years of operations.

Financial Plan

Alex Raymond law firm has formulated a financial plan that will steer the path to business success. To the business, Alex will use his personal savings and funds from two investors. A loan will be sought to help raise startup capital for the business. Crucial financial information for the business has been indicated in the law firm business plan template free.

8.1 Important Assumptions

Financial forecast for Raymond Associates law firm will be based on the following assumptions.

8.2 Brake-even Analysis

Raymond Associates Brake-even Analysis is indicated in the graph below.

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

Profit and Loss information for Raymond Associates calculated on a monthly and annual basis is shown below.

8.3.1 Monthly Profit

8.3.2 yearly profit, 8.3.3 monthly gross margin, 8.3.4 yearly gross margin.

Below is the profit and Loss Analysis for Raymond Associates law firm.

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

The diagram below is a summary of subtotal cash spent, subtotal cash from operations, subtotal cash spent on operations, subtotal cash received and pro forma cash flow.

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

The following is a Projected Balance Sheet for Raymond Associates law firm that shows capital, assets, long term assets, liabilities and current liabilities.

8.6 Business Ratios

Raymond Associates law firm Business Ratios, Ratio Analysis and Business Net Worth are shown below.

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Home Committees, Members & Career Services Small Law Firm Center Overview Small Firm Resources Writing a Business Plan for Law Firm – Law Firm Business Plan Sample

Writing a Business Plan for Law Firm – Law Firm Business Plan Sample

Business plans for lawyers.

New York City Bar Association Small Law Firm Committee

Writing a Business Plans for Lawyers – The Non-Financial Side

1 Why write a law firm business plan?

First and foremost, it’s a Management Tool, It f orces you to think through important issues you may not otherwise consider The recipe to grow your law practice

• A roadmap, albeit a changing one, with milestones to help reach goals you already know and have yet to define
• A sales tool to obtain financing
• A sales tool when looking to form a partnership or join one
• Some parts of a business plan include stating the obvious, but should not be overlooked because they still form a part of the whole
• As you write it, ideas come, strategies unfold, beliefs you may have had change
• It also changes your mindset. You’re no longer thinking about starting a business, you’re now in the process of starting a business.
• If you write a business plan and put it away in a drawer you have not written one that is feasible or is going to do you any good. Continual updating – whether semi-annual, annual, biennial, whichever is best for you – is your own set of checks and balances.

If you are going to buy a book, look for one that offers general advice and suggestions applicable to all businesses. And, if you choose a software package, eliminate the “techy” things like their numbering system; that is a dead giveaway that you’re using a software program. Also, eliminate sections that are irrelevant!

Suggestion: Don’t just buy one from an online bookstore. Take the time go through a table of contents and thumb through.

Examples available from Barnes & Noble:

• Alpha Teach Yourself – Business Plans in 24 Hours by Michael Miller
• Successful Business Planning in 30 Days TM, 3/ed, Peter Patsula
• The Executive Summary
• Analysis of Your Market
• Description of Your Firm
• Competitors
• Your Marketing Strategy

No set formula for a successful practice

Before developing a plan for a lawyer, answer the following:

• Identify your practice niche(s)
• What skills and experience you bring to your practice
• What legal structure to use: sole proprietorship, PC, partnership, LLP, etc.
• What clients you currently have and might potentially acquire
• What clients you want
• What business and social contacts you have
• What other attorneys you can call upon to fill in practice gaps
• How your firm’s records will be kept
• What equipment and supplies will be needed
• What library and other information sources will be needed
• What insurance will be needed
• What other resources will be needed
• How you will compensate yourself
• Review your current finances re assets, current cash flow, expenses
• What financing may be needed
• What financial assets do you have
• What banking accounts will be needed
• Review your current non non-financial resources
• Identify your market
• Describe your startup plans
• Where will your office be located
• What will the name of your firm be

2 The Executive Summary

For some businesses this is the most important part of the business plan because it summarizes what the company does, where it is going and how to get there. Therefore, it must describe the company, the “product” and the market opportunities concisely.

It is written after the plan is complete but is the first and, sometimes, most important part read by investors.

How important this is for a legal business plan depends on your long and short term goals, e.g., whether they are to grow a partnership, join a firm, build up a practice that is enticing for acquisition by a larger firm, etc.

In order to provide that summary, go through a number of exercises:

• Mission statement – the firm’s purpose and what it will do
• Major goals
• Objectives/milestones needed to achieve those goals
• Vision statement – where you want to go and what you want your firm to become, not just 20 years down the road but where you want to be three or five years from now
• List what is out of your control e.g., nature of the law business, direction of the marketplace, competition, mergers and acquisitions among clients, and competitors, attorneys and firms already in place
• Analyze opportunities to face and threats
• List your firm’s specific capabilities and whatever you believe you can offer that is unique
• If you are not a solo practitioner, who is the management
• What is the legal organization
• What technology will you be capitalizing on
• What is the marketing potential
• Describe your basic strategies based on the information you have learned about the legal business, your competition and applicable markets within your field.
• Provide the basis for why you believe your strategy is the right one for your firm.
• What markers will you use to change direction
• Outline what your firm needs to make that strategy succeed
• Financial projections
• Back up of those projections with assumptions (so that they can be adjusted as necessary)
• Summary of revenues by month for at least three years
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow statement
• What actions you’re going to take to carry out the plan
• What changes will be needed or skills acquired to put the plan to work

3 Analysis of Your Market: The Legal “Business” that Affects You

Purpose: an accurate understanding of trends affecting law practice in general and your specializations, client demographics, client universe.

Keep track of impact factors, obstacles, opportunities and threats to better forecast and build the strategies.

• Identify who and what firms dominate and where they are
• What new technologies have already and may yet change the way your practice is done
• What laws and regulations have and may yet change your practice
• Describe the overall demand for your specialties
• What else besides price affects your client decisions to use your services
• What clients (people or companies) can influence your areas of practice
• Large firms, mid size, boutiques, solo practitioners
• In-house attorneys
• Government attorneys
• Divide into primary, secondary and, if necessary, tertiary levels
• Is there substitution, e.g., do it yourself or outsourcing to India
• List what is available and how it affects your practice
• Describe how technology is affecting your kind of practice
• Describe who controls the technologies that affect
• Describe how you keep up with new technology
• List all the things that will make it difficult for you to practice in your expertise and locale
• List the things that will make your exit from you area of expertise or your transition to a different one difficult
• What can relationships with suppliers do for you
• Could a supplier become a competitor, e.g.; for articles you write
• Colleagues and competitors
• Professional associations
• Community associations
• Social and business organizations
• Current and former clients
• Former employment colleagues
• Pro bono colleagues
• What ways improve your position with clients
• Does pricing affect
• What else affects your relationship
• What kind of follow up do you do after meeting someone who may be a potential client or who can introduce you
• Writing articles
• Giving speeches
• How can you use your other relationships
• What are the overall costs that affect your hourly, daily or matter rates?
• Profit margins
• What do suppliers of your technology, research, information, etc. offer by way of pricing, discounts
• Are there long term agreements that can be to your advantage/disadvantage
• Elasticity of demand for the rates you charge
• If on a regular retainer, are you realizing 100% of your hourly rate, or more/less
• Identify where the biggest costs of your practice come from
• Identify fixed and variable costs
• How to gain economies of scale
• Identify where you can lower costs
• Is the profit margin you’re working with the right one for your practice
• Describe the size of your primary market
• List the niche markets that can use your expertise
• Is your kind of practice a growing or shrinking market
• Identify new growth opportunities in your areas of expertise
• Economic slowdowns
• Changing statutes, regulations and decisions
• Social pressures
• By product, industry, size, geography
• Membership lists of trade organizations
• List of conference attendees
• By referral of current clients
• By referral of colleagues, bar association, etc.
• By referral from competitors with conflicts
• What untapped market is there
• What underserved market is there
• Trade associations made of small companies in the same field
• Part time general counsel for small companies
• Trade associations you can join and committees you can volunteer for

4 Describing and Analyzing Your Own Firm

• It’s not just a law firm.
• What’s the general history
• When was it formed and why
• What is your mission
• What are your goals
• What direct experience do you have? Your partners?
• How relevant is your experience to the current world?
• How often do you talk to prospective clients
• What do you current clients feel about you
• What is the maximum amount of business you can handle yourself without farming it out
• To whom can you farm
• Who is your backup when you are too busy, traveling on business, on vacation, sick
• What is unique about you or your practice
• Describe the areas you focus on and want to focus on
• What are the ancillary areas of law that often or usually involved or triggered by your focus area
• What need does your expertise serve
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of your areas of expertise
• Identify your own strengths and weaknesses
• Who are your clients
• Who among your clients makes the decisions to use your services
• What stage of business development are your clients in
• How sophisticated/knowledgeable are your clients
• Are your clients street smart and/or business savvy
• Do they use more than one lawyer at a time
• Long term objectives
• Short term objectives
• What problems do you face
• What problems do your clients face
• What do you consider milestones
• What are the legal (statutory, regulatory & case law) trends that will affect it
• What are the technological trends that will affect it
• What are the economic trends that will affect it
• What potential risks and opportunities to be faced?
• Do you use innovative technology
• Do you offer superior client care/service
• Is your hourly, daily, or matter pricing lower than the “norm”
• Is there a small group of firms or attorneys who offer the same expertise or specialization
• Are you well known for a book, a speech, an article, news coverage, etc.
• Are you a trade association or bar association director or active participan
• Do a SWOT Analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths & Weaknesses are vis à vis your competitors, rather than your own history Focus on current competition and potential competition

• Are there advantages to your expertise areas
• What do you enjoy doing
• What resources to you have access to
• What do others see as your strengths
• What can you improve
• What don’t you do well
• What should you avoid
• Do others perceive a weakness you don’t agree with
• Are your competitors doing better than you
• How can you meet a potential client
• What are the good opportunities – are they new areas, new statutes & regulations, etc.
• How can changes in technology help you
• How can changes (or no changes) in government policy affect your area of expertise
• Are there changes in social patterns or lifestyle that can help
• What opportunities can open if a weakness is eliminated
• Family/emotional/physical challenges
• Technological challenges
• What is your competition doing you are not
• How can technological changes threaten you

5 Competitive Analysis and Target Market

• List law firm/solo practice trends
• List direct competition
• List indirect competition
• Describe the extent of the unserved market for your kind of legal services
• Who is your client/customer
• What is your price
• Profile your primary customer
• Traits: geographics, demographics, psychograhics
• List client needs
• Describe how your fill those needs
• List primary, secondary and tertiary competitors
• What services do they offer in addition to yours
• What do they charge
• How do competitor firms sell their services
• What are the competitor strengths
• What are the competitor weaknesses
• What size competes with you
• What other specialties do they offer
• Who are they representing
• What is their pricing
• What are their operational strengths and weaknesses
• Are they adequately financed
• How do your competitors advertise or promote themselves
• What are their conflicts
• How does your competition market itself
• Competitive Identification
• Direct competitor – offers the same benefit
• Indirect competitor – services the client can get instead of yours
• Visit and read competitor websites and their advertising, including separate websites by individual partners
• Subscribe to competitor law firm online or other newsletters
• Does it use innovative technology
• Does it offer superior client care/service
• Is its hourly, daily, or matter pricing lower than the “norm”
• Are they well known for a book, a speech, an article, news coverage, etc.
• Are they trade association or bar association directors or active participants

Generate similar info for potential clients to help identify the target that will be most interested in you

A marketing plan must have a detailed description of the target market for your services, an analysis of the trends and conditions of that marketplace and how the trends affect that marketplace

• Total size of targeted market
• Historical current and projected growth rates
• What social, economic &political changes could affect it and your services
• Describe recent developments in the law that affect your areas of expertise
• Are there identifiable niches
• What or will be your clients’ needs and wants
• How will potential customers find out about you
• What kind of marketing, if any, are your clients and potential clients receptive to
• What do existing clients like best about your services
• Are your target clients consumers, businesses or both
• Demographics, psychographics, legal service purchasing habits
• When and how does the client decide to use a lawyer & find a lawyer
• Does your potential client use the Internet, bar association, trade association, business referral, family referral, friend referral, etc. to find a lawyer
• What is your client’s level of education and occupation
• Are they Fortune 1000,500, 100, mid size or smaller
• Is your client industry specialized and do you know that industry
• Does the client use more than one lawyer or law firm
• How long does the client take to decide to use a lawyer
• Does more than one person at the client make the decisions to use a lawyer, and if so who are they
• Is the person who decides who is going to provide legal services the one who is going to receive those services
• What influences your client’s decision to retain a lawyer
• Is using a lawyer optional, a necessity or a luxury
• Is a lawyer needed all year round, seasonal or ad hoc
• How and how well do your clients market themselves

6 Marketing & Strategy

Once you analyze your client needs you can build a comprehensive marketing strategy,

• What is it you intend to accomplish
• What is the amount of increase in clients and/or billing that you want to achieve
• Make each goal measurable and explain each one specifically
• Set each goal to a planned schedule
• Be able and prepared to assess all components to revise when necessary
• Compare these goals to what you believe your competitors’ goals to be
• Tactical objectives = measurable tasks
• Create client value
• Name recognition among your clients and potential clients
• Client retention
• Attracting partners or merging into a bigger firm
• Create a timeline for the objectives or events
• Determine the time frame for the plan, e.g., every six months, every year, etc.
• Describe the need for your services from the client’s POV
• Define the impact on the client of your services
• Ask whether your clients currently obtain this service more cost-effectively than you can provide it
• Describe what would compel clients to change from the lawyers they are using to you or to add you to their lawyer rosters
• E.g., how you will use that list of relationships
• Marketing Mix – Networking, Advertising, Promotion, PR
• Inserts in papers
• Bus, taxi, etc. ads
• Space in professional and trade publications
• Street banners
• New resident welcome kits
• Trade and trade association show directories and handouts
• Trade and trade association show sponsorships
• Coupon mailers
• Press releases
• Sponsorship
• CRM (customer relationship marketing)
• Cost based = cost plus profit margin
• Cost plus profit = cost plus fixed percentage markup
• Market based = use the market norm and add or subtract
• Ask what the highest price your target market can bear
• Determine the price elasticity for your kind of legal services
• Should you offer an introductory rate
• Age of business
• Premises/location
• Competition
• Cost to acquire a client

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Seven Sample Attorney Business Plans: Why Attorneys Must Have Business Plans

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By  Harrison Barnes

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• Business plans are a dying art, especially in the legal profession.
• Needless to say, business plans are also essential for a lawyer’s career.
• As the adage goes, if you don't plan your career, someone else will plan it for you.

Many of you work in firms that don't have a business plan for the firm as a whole , let alone your practice group or individual attorneys. And some of you are not privy to the firm's plan, even if there is one.

• If you are interested in seeing the elements of a lateral partner business plan click here: Partner Business Plans: Key Elements

Even so, that's no reason to forgo developing a plan for yourself. Remember, if you don't plan your career, someone else will plan it for you.

Have no fear. Personal business planning is not about writing a 50-page manifesto outlining every detail of every day of your professional life for the next 10 years . In fact, personal business planning can be as simple as you want to make it, as you can see here with this sample business plan for law practice PDF . You don't even have to call it a business plan -- call it a career plan if you prefer.

No matter how simple you make it or what you call it, personal business planning is about taking inventory of where you are , determining where you want to go and building a roadmap for getting there. Once you have the plan in writing, all you have to do is revisit it periodically to check your course and make any necessary adjustments.

Also, when it comes to planning, the biggest land mines are complexity and procrastination. Try to avoid creating a plan that overwhelms you or anyone you tell about it. And remember that any plan is better than no plan at all.

Strive to keep your plan simple and start taking action. As an attorney, you're well-versed in the areas of analysis and logic. In every work matter, you look at the situation and connect the dots to accomplish the desired objective. Apply the same approach to personal business planning and the dots you connect will lead you to the career you've always wanted.

• See 30 Ways to Generate Business as an Attorney for more information.

Business Plan For A Law Firm

How do i write a business plan for a law firm, what goes into a business plan, overview of the firm.

• A mission statement about the firm’s purpose.
• A vision statement or recitation of medium- and long-term goals for the firm.
• Important aspects of the firm’s history.
• Any important philosophies that the firm brings to legal practice.

Market Analysis

Do lawyers write business plans, 1. what are your goals.

• What do I want to achieve by starting my own law firm ?
• What is the impact I want to have?
• What am I good at?
• How do I want to service my clients?
• What problems do I want to help solve?
• What does success look like after starting this law firm?

2. Consider how much revenue you will need.

3. setting your fee structure, 4. determine how many cases you need to meet that revenue goal, how to create a law firm business plan, 1. executive summary.

• Mission statement: One or two sentences describing your firm’s purpose.
• Core values: What values are most important to the firm?
• Major goals: What are your firm’s overarching goals and objectives?
• Unique selling proposition: What sets your firm apart from other firms?

2. Firm Description

• Service(s): What type of law do you practice? What types of clients do you serve?
• Firm values: Restate your mission statement and core values.
• Legal structure: What sort of business entity are you? Are you in a sole proprietorship or a limited liability partnership?
• Location: Where is the office geographically located? What areas does the firm serve?
• Unique selling proposition: What makes your firm stand out? What technology or services give your firm an edge?

3. Market Analysis

• Ideal client: What demographics (like location, age, occupation), needs, and motivations would signify the best client match for your firm, and why?
• Industry description: What is the current and projected size of the market your firm is in? What are the trends in your legal niche?
• Competitive analysis: Who are your direct and indirect competitors, and how are they serving your target market? Where do your competitors succeed? What opportunities are there for your firm?
• Projections: How much can your ideal clients spend on legal services? How much can you charge?

4. Organization and Management Overview

• Describe what makes you unique and what sets you apart from other applicants.
• If applicable, include what makes each member of your team suitable for their particular roles.
• The organizational chart is a great visual aid if you have a larger practice.

5. Services

• What problems do your potential clients need your help with?
• How can your services uniquely help your clients solve their problems?
• What is the benefit of your services to clients?
• Why would potential clients choose your firm over another firm?

6. Marketing Strategy

• Ideal client: Where would you find your ideal client?
• Marketing goals: Detail what specific outcomes you hope to accomplish through marketing. Goals should include tactical objectives (more clients? Higher billing rates?) and overall objectives (like increased name recognition).
• Unique selling proposition: Restate what sets you apart and makes you uniquely able to best serve your clients.
• Competition: Detail who your competition is—and what they are doing to gain clients. Analyze their marketing strategies and assess where the cost of your services fits in with your competitors.
• Action plan: List the specific actions your firm will take to reach your target market and achieve your marketing goals (this could include a media/advertising strategy).

7. Financial Plan

• Revenue goal: How much money you want to make broken down by month.
• Financial projections: What you will really expect to earn, how many cases you think you will have the capacity to take on, and what you will be charging each client each month.
• Budget: A breakdown of your expenses and what your money will be going towards each month.
• Cash flow statement: What you actually earned and spent each month. This is different from your projections and budget and should be updated as the year progresses. You will find that you may have budgeted for something that cost you much less than you originally thought or made more in a month than you projected, these discrepancies should be recorded in your cash flow statement.

8. Start-Up Budget

• Hardware (laptops, printers, scanners, office furniture, etc.)
• Office space (Will you rent, or work from home?)
• Malpractice insurance
• Staff salaries (Are you planning to hire an administrative assistant or paralegal?)
• Utilities (Phone, internet, etc.)
• Practice management software or other technology services
• Partner Business Plans: Key Elements
• You Need to be Self-Managing and Responsible
• The Importance of Finding and Creating Demand
• The Importance of Asking the Right Questions, Self Improvement and Perception
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 1
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 2
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 3
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 4
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 5
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 6
• Attorney Business Plan Sample 7

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Harrison Barnes does a weekly free webinar with live Q&A for attorneys and law students each Wednesday at 10:00 am PST. You can attend anonymously and ask questions about your career, this article, or any other legal career-related topics. You can sign up for the weekly webinar here: Register on Zoom

Harrison also does a weekly free webinar with live Q&A for law firms, companies, and others who hire attorneys each Wednesday at 10:00 am PST. You can sign up for the weekly webinar here: Register on Zoom

You can browse a list of past webinars here: Webinar Replays

You can also listen to Harrison Barnes Podcasts here: Attorney Career Advice Podcasts

You can also read Harrison Barnes' articles and books here: Harrison's Perspectives

Harrison Barnes is the legal profession's mentor and may be the only person in your legal career who will tell you why you are not reaching your full potential and what you really need to do to grow as an attorney--regardless of how much it hurts. If you prefer truth to stagnation, growth to comfort, and actionable ideas instead of fluffy concepts, you and Harrison will get along just fine. If, however, you want to stay where you are, talk about your past successes, and feel comfortable, Harrison is not for you.

Truly great mentors are like parents, doctors, therapists, spiritual figures, and others because in order to help you they need to expose you to pain and expose your weaknesses. But suppose you act on the advice and pain created by a mentor. In that case, you will become better: a better attorney, better employees, a better boss, know where you are going, and appreciate where you have been--you will hopefully also become a happier and better person. As you learn from Harrison, he hopes he will become your mentor.

To read more career and life advice articles visit Harrison's personal blog.

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About Harrison Barnes

Harrison is the founder of BCG Attorney Search and several companies in the legal employment space that collectively gets thousands of attorneys jobs each year. Harrison is widely considered the most successful recruiter in the United States and personally places multiple attorneys most weeks. His articles on legal search and placement are read by attorneys, law students and others millions of times per year.

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Law Firm Business Plan [Sample Template]

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business ideas » Service Industry » Legal Services » Law Firm

Are you about starting a Law firm? If YES, here’s a complete sample Law firm business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE to get started .

Okay, so we have considered all the requirements for starting a law firm . We also took it further by analyzing and drafting a sample law firm marketing plan template backed up by actionable guerrilla marketing ideas for law firms. So let’s proceed to the business planning section.

Lawyers would always be in need by people, companies, schools, and what have you. This isn’t unique to any part of the world, because it is the same phenomenon all over the world. For as long as there are people still living on the face of the earth, there would be rancor and disputes, and the need to have lawyers trash out cases would always arise.

It is for this reason that some lawyers have positioned themselves to take advantage of this trend, and have continued to make huge amount of money from the industry. Without mincing words, starting a law firm is a very profitable venture.

A Sample Law Firm Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

The services of lawyers are needed in every part of the united states of America. Statistics has it that the United States of America has about 165,000 law offices and they generate about $180 billion in annual revenue. These goes to show that starting a law firm is indeed a prosperous business in the U.S, because there is a large market for such business and the industry provides loads of job opportunities for lawyers and other professionals.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that job opportunities for legal practitioners will grow at the same rate as the average for all other occupations in coming years; the growth will be fastest in areas such as intellectual property, healthcare, antitrust, and environmental law et al.

No doubt, the growth of the U.S. population and the expansion of corporate America will definitely lead to the growth in the demand for legal services.

All over the globe, before anyone can be allowed to practice law, they are expected to pass the bar exams in the country or state in which they want to practice. In other words, the journey of starting your own private law firm starts when you eventual pass through a law school.

Although a large percentage of lawyers work for big, corporate law firms, but there are still many lawyers who are employed at mid-sized regional firms and even in one- man and two-person law firms. Just like most other industries in the U.S. and in other parts of the world, the legal services industry is globalizing at a swift pace.

Progressively more, bigger law firms are establishing offices in other countries, some are restructuring and repositioning their existing foreign offices, and others are merging or partnering with local law firms in order to position their organization to handle legal aspects of international trade and other related issues.

This recent trend is responsible for creating job opportunities for lawyers with expertise in international relations and cross-border transactions et al. In the U.S. and also in other parts of the world, lawyer firms who know how to position their organization will always be busy handling legal businesses for their clients.

Some law firms may decide to operate a general law business that cuts across various law practices, whilst others may choose to specialize in any of the two major areas of private sector law. They can choose to operate as a transactional (corporate) law firm or specialize in litigation.

Beyond every reasonable doubt, being a lawyer can be extremely challenging and demanding, but at the same time, it can also be quite rewarding. Lawyers have the privilege of providing a vital service to the business world and to individuals as well.

Lawyers serve as protectors, advisers, and advocates, which is why they are considered experts in communication, analysis, and persuasion, giving them prestige and leverage in society.

2. Executive Summary

Jefferson & MacArthur Law Firm LLP is a law firm that will be located in Inc. 268 13th Street, Suite 1110 Oakland, California 94612. The company will operate as a litigation law firm and also handle other related aspect of law as requested by our clients.

Our services will cover areas such as; breaches of contract, securities-law breaches, class-action lawsuits, antitrust actions, employment-related problems, white-collar crime, and any other related cases.

We are aware that businesses these days require diverse and sophisticated legal services. This is why we will position our law firm to offer a wide range of legal services as requested by our clients. We handle offer legal services ranging from mergers and acquisitions to Product liability, from intellectual property to real estate.

Jefferson & MacArthur Law Firm LLP is a client-focused business law firm that provides broad-based experience at an affordable fee that won’t in any way put a hole in the pocket of our clients.

We will offer a complete range of legal services to our local, state, national, and multi-national clients and we will ensure that we work hard to provide the legal services and counsel needed by our clients to accomplish their business goals and objectives.

At Jefferson & MacArthur Law Firm, our client’s best interests come first, and everything we do is guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hire attorneys who are well experienced in a wide variety of transactional and litigation matters.

We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely. We will cultivate a working environment that provides a human, sustainable approach to earning a living, and living in our world, for our partners, employees and for our clients.

Jefferson & MacArthur Law Firm will at all times demonstrate her commitment to sustainability, both individually and as a firm, by actively participating in our communities and integrating sustainable business practices wherever possible.

Jefferson & MacArthur Law Firm, LLP is founded by Jefferson Carson and his son MacArthur Carson. The organization will be managed by MacArthur Carson; he graduated from Cumberland School of Law and Brock School of Business at Stamford University.

He has extensive experience in a diverse range of transactional matters, and his legal practice is concentrated in the areas of commercial real estate, commercial finance, construction, and general business contracts.

3. Our Products and Services

Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP proposes to offer a variety of services within the scope of the law industry in the United States of America. Our intention of starting our law firm is to make profits from the industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the US to achieve our aim and ambition. Our business offering are listed below;

• Arbitration & Mediation
• Business Formation
• Business and Commercial Transaction
• Collections and Credit Matters
• Commercial Real Estate
• Construction
• Corporate Governance and Compliance
• Creditor’s Rights
• General Counsel Services
• Immigration
• Real Estate Consultancy and Advisory Services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

• Our vision is to provide our clients with skilled legal advice in a timely and efficient manner.   We strive to handle each matter with accountability and responsiveness, as if we were representing ourselves. We focus our attention on the legal aspects of our client’s business so that our clients can focus their attention on the success of their business.
• Our vision reflects our values: integrity, service, excellence and teamwork.
• Our mission is to provide professional and trusted legal services that assist businesses and non-profit organizations in operating sustainably. We provide expert legal counsel in combination with our own business backgrounds, and deliver valuable services in a timely and cost-effective way.

Our Business Structure

Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP will build a solid business structure that can support the growth of our business. We will ensure that we hire competent hands to help us build the business of our dream. Below is the business structure that we will build Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP on;

• Founder and President

Patent Attorney

Legal Secretary

• Legal Assistant

Admin and HR Manager

Business Developer

Front Desk Officer

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Founder and President:

• Responsible for providing direction for the firm
• Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for handling high profile clients and deals
• Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization
• Reports to the board
• Represents clients in criminal and civil litigation and other legal proceedings
• Draws up legal documents, or manage or advise clients on legal transactions.
• Attends court hearings (and doing the preparation beforehand)
• Responsible for negotiating (not all cases will end up in court)
• Explains the law and gives general legal advice
• Responsible for settling disputes and supervising any agreements
• Researching and gathering evidence
• Responsible for analyzing legal documents
• Supervises legal assistants.
• Discusses inventions and processes with inventors or manufacturers and ascertaining whether they are likely to succeed in being granted patents
• Studies and analyzes scientific or technical documents, including previously granted patents, to assess whether an invention is new and innovative
• Writes detailed descriptions of inventions in precise legal terms (patent drafts)
• Suggests modifications or extensions to the definition of the invention
• Applies for patents from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) , often presenting complicated technical arguments
• Prepares responses to reports from patent examiners
• Ensures application and renewal deadlines are met
• Works with solicitors and barristers to defend or enforce uk patents
• Conducts litigation in proceedings at the EPO or in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), formerly the Patents County Court
• Advises overseas agents on applications for foreign patent applications
• Instructs on whether business activities will infringe someone else’s patent rights
• Deals with assignments of patent when a patent is sold or transferred
• Keeps up-to-date with legal developments in the intellectual property field
• Advises on other intellectual property rights, e.g. designs or trademarks
• Tutors and mentors trainee patent agents.
• Responsible for drawing up contracts and other legal documents for the company
• Welcomes guests and clients by greeting them in person or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries.
• Produces information by transcribing, formatting, inputting, editing, retrieving, copying, and transmitting text, data, and graphics; coordinating case preparation.
• Conserves attorneys time by reading, researching, reviewing, verifying, and routing correspondence, reports and legal documents; drafting letters and documents; collecting and analyzing information; initiating telecommunications; organizing client conferences, and attorney meetings; scheduling couriers, court reporters, expert witnesses, and other special functions; coordinating preparation of charts, graphs, and other courtroom visuals; preparing expense reports.
• Maintains attorney calendar by planning and scheduling conferences, teleconferences, dispositions, and travel; recording and monitoring court appearance dates, pleadings, and filing requirements; monitoring evidence-gathering; anticipating changes in litigation or transaction preparation requirements.
• Represents attorney by communicating and obtaining information; following-up on delegated assignments; knowing when to act and when to refer matters to attorney.
• Generates revenues by documenting and inputting attorney billable time and reimbursable expenses; preparing invoices; tracking payments.
• Maintains client confidence by keeping client/attorney information confidential.
• Provides historical reference by developing and utilizing filing and retrieval systems; recording meeting discussions; maintaining transcripts; documenting and maintaining evidence.
• Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
• Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
• Updates job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities; reading professional publications; maintaining personal networks; participating in professional organizations.
• Enhances department and organization reputation by accepting ownership for accomplishing new and different requests; exploring opportunities to add value to job accomplishments.
• Assists attorneys in preparing for trials and court proceedings.
• Supports attorneys in a legal office.
• Investigates the facts of cases and ensure that all relevant information is considered.
• Identify appropriate laws, judicial decisions, legal articles, and other materials for assigned cases.
• Compiles, analyzes, and organizes information.
• Gathers exhibits.
• Prepares written reports.
• Prepares legal arguments for lawsuits.
• Drafts pleadings and motions filed in court.
• Secures affidavits.
• Assists attorneys during trials.
• Organizes and tracks files from case documents and make them available and easily accessible to attorneys.
• Drafts contracts, mortgages, and separation agreements.
• Prepares tax returns.
• Establishes trust funds.
• Plans estates.
• Supervises other law office employees.
• Delegates responsibilities.
• Maintains financial records.
• Searches legal literature stored in computer databases and on CD-ROM.
• Tracks hours and bill to clients.

Legal Office Assistant

• Works under the direction of lawyers and help them prepare for meetings, hearings and trials. Undertake research projects for multiple cases to determine precedent, drafts or completes legal documents and ensure the correct paperwork is filed with the courts within a specific time period.
• Works directly with clients in a non-advising capacity, such as answering questions, scheduling appointments and making sure all court requirements are met.
• Handles other routine tasks, such as processing and transcribing documents, entering data, scheduling and taking dictation are common duties of a legal office assistant.
• Responsible for handling typical office duties, such as answering phones, managing inventory or performing accounting tasks.
• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Defines job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carries out staff induction for new team members
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
• Oversees the smooth running of the daily office activities.
• Identifies, prioritizes, and reaches out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
• Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts; participates in the structuring and financing of projects; assures the completion of development projects.
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
• Develops, executes and evaluates new plans for expanding increase sales
• Documents all customer contact and information
• Represents the company in strategic meetings
• Helps increase sales and growth for the company
• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports; analyzes financial feasibility for the most complex proposed projects; conducts market research to forecast trends and business conditions.
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for the company
• Serves as internal auditor for the company
• Receives Visitors / clients on behalf of the organization
• Receives parcels / documents for the company
• Handles enquiries via e-mail and phone calls for the organization
• Distributes mails in the organization
• Handles any other duties as assigned my the line manager

6. SWOT Analysis

Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP hired the services of a core professional in the area of business consulting and structuring to assist the firm in building a solid law firm that can favorably compete in the highly competitive law industry.

Part of what the business consultant did was to work with the management of the firm in conducting a SWOT analysis and preparing a law firm marketing plan for Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP;

Our core strength lies in the power of our team; our workforce. We have a team that can go all the way to give our clients value for their money. We are well positioned and we know we will attract loads of clients from the first day we open our doors for business.

As a new law firm, it might take some time for our firm to break into the market; that is perhaps our major weakness.

• Opportunities:

The opportunities in the law industry is massive and we are ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes our way.

Some of the threats that we are likely going to face as a law firm operating in the United States are unfavorable government policies, and global economic downturn. There are hardly anything we could do as regards these threats other than to be optimistic that things will continue to work for our good.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

Quite a number of distinct trends have emerged in recent times in the legal industry, which is why law firms are positioning their organizations to survive the peaks and troughs of an ailing economy.

As a matter of fact, most of these trends aid law firms and organizations to become more creative, competitive, efficient, and productive in a global market. Some other trends in the legal industry could be attributed to changing demographics, attitudes and work styles.

Another trend that is gaining momentum in the legal industry is that clients have the options of seeking legal assistance from a growing number of non-lawyer professionals such as; paralegal technicians, legal document preparers, legal self-help sites, virtual assistants and offshore legal vendors.

As a result of this trend, the decisions about how legal services are delivered which include staffing, scheduling, strategies and most importantly how firms charge for their services – are increasingly being influenced by the clients, and not by the law firms as it used to be in time past.

No doubt, as the cost of legal services continues to increase and as corporate spending falls, new legal delivery methods will continue to emerge and gain momentum going forward. In addition, the market for legal services has shifted from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market.

Lastly, it is now becoming trendy in the legal industry for smaller law firms to merge with bigger law firms and for bigger law firms to acquire smaller law firms; mergers and acquisitions. Many law firms all over the United States are coming to the conclusion that the bigger the better for them.

8. Our Target Market

Although Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP will initially serve small to medium sized businesses, from new ventures to well established businesses, but that does not in any way stop us from growing to be able to compete with the leading law firms in the United States.

We hope to someday merge or acquire other law firms and expand our legal services beyond the shores of the United States of America.

As a full service business law firm, Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP have a variety of practice areas to help startups grow.

While we works with a variety of organizations and industries, Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP will also specialize in working with startups, real estate investors, and contractors, manufacturers and distributors, banks, lending and financial institutions.

Our target market cuts across people of different classes and people from all walks of life, local and international organizations as well. We are coming into the industry with a business concept that will enable us work with the highly placed people and companies in the country and at the same with the lowly placed people and smaller businesses.

In other words, our target market is the whole of the United States of America and subsequently other parts of the world. Below is a list of the people and organizations that we have specifically design our products and services for;

• Businesses and Entrepreneurs
• Blue Chips Companies
• Corporate Counsel
• Manufacturers and Distributors
• Real Estate Owners, Developers, and Contractors
• Research and Development Companies

Our Competitive Advantage

A close study of the legal industry reveals that the law firm market has become much more intensely competitive over the past seven years. As a matter of fact, the supply of legal services has significantly exceeded demand. In other to position to take on the market, most law firms have begun to merger or acquire other law firms.

Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP might be a new entrant into the law industry in the United States of America, but the management staffs and board members are considered gurus. They are people who are core professionals and licensed legal practitioners in the US. These are part of what will count as a competitive advantage for us.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be amongst the best within our category (startups law firm) in the industry – meaning that they will be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our objectives.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

• Sources of Income

Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP is established with the aim of maximizing the profits in the law industry and we are going to go all the way to ensure that we do all it takes to attract clients on a regular basis. Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP we generate income by offering the following legal services for individuals and for organizations;

10. Sales Forecast

As long as there are people living in the United States of America and business starting and growing in the U.S., the services of law firms will always be needed.

We are well positioned to take on the available market in the U.S, and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first month or operations and grow the business and clientele beyond Oakland, CA to other states in the U.S. and even the global market

We have been able to critically examine the law market and we have analyzed our chances in the industry. We have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. The sales projection are based on information gathered on the field and some assumptions that are peculiar to startups in California.

Below is the sales projection for Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP, it is based on the location of our law firm and the wide range of legal services that we will be offering;

• First Year-: $500,000
• Second Year-: $1,000,000
• Third Year-: $2,500,000

N.B : This projection is done based on what is obtainable in the industry,

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

We are mindful of the fact that there is stiffer competition in the legal market in the United States of America; hence we have been able to hire some of the best business developer to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited based on their vast experience in the industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of the organization. We will also ensure that our excellent job deliveries speaks for us in the market place; we want to build a legal business that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients (both individuals and organizations).

Our goal is to grow our firm to become one of the top 20 law firms in California, which is why we have mapped out strategy that will help us take advantage of the available market and grow to become a major force in the. Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

• Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to organizations and key individuals in California and other parts of the U.S.
• Promptness in bidding for legal contracts
• List our business on yellow pages
• Attend expos, seminars, and business fairs et al
• Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets and still deliver quality services to them
• Leverage on the internet to promote our business
• Direct marketing
• Encourage word of mouth marketing

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We have been able to work with our consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market.

We are set to take the law industry by storm which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our firm. Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise our property development business;

• Place adverts our law firm on both print and electronic media platforms
• Sponsor relevant TV shows
• Maximize our firm’s website to promote our business
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook ,Twitter, LinkedIn, Badoo, Google+ and other platforms (real estate online forums) to promote our business.
• Offer Pro Bono services as part of our community social responsibility
• Brand all our official cars

12. Our Pricing Strategy

Hourly billing for legal services is long – time tradition in the industry. However, for some types of work, flat fees make more sense because they allow clients to better predict legal costs. As a result of this, Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP will charge our clients a flat fee for many basic services such as; business formation and document drafting and review.

At Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP we will keep our fees below market rate for all of our clients by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to disadvantaged individuals, nonprofits, cooperatives, and small social enterprises.

We are aware that there are some clients that would need regular access to legal advice and assistance; we will offer flat rate general counsel services that will be tailored to take care of such clients’ needs.

• Payment Options

At Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP, our payment policy will be all inclusive because we are quite aware that different people prefer different payment options as it suits them. Here are the payment options that we will make available to our clients;

• Payment by via bank transfer
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via check
• Payment via bank draft
• Payment with cash

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will help us achieve our plans without any itches.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

• The Total Fee for incorporating the Business in California: $750.
• The budget for Liability insurance, permits and license: $5,000
• The Amount needed to acquire a suitable Office facility with enough space in Oakland, California for 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive): $50,000.
• The Cost for equipping the office (computers, printers, fax machines, furniture, telephones, filing cabins, safety gadgets and electronics et al): $15,000
• Cost of accounting software, CRM software and Payroll Software – $3,000
• Other start-up expenses including stationery – $1000
• Phone and Utilities (gas, sewer, water and electric) deposits – ($3,500).
• Operational cost for the first 3 months (salaries of employees, payments of bills et al) – $40,000
• The Cost of Launching our official Website: $600
• Additional Expenditure (Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions et al): $5,000

Going by the report from our research and feasibility studies, we will need about $200,000 to set up a law firm in Oakland, California.

Generating Funding / Startup Capital for At Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP

At Jefferson and MacArthur Law Firm, LLP is going to start as a private business that will be solely owned by Bar Jefferson Carson and family.

He will be the sole financial of the firm, but may likely welcome partners pretty much which is why he has decided to restrict the sourcing of his start – up capital to 3 major sources. These are the areas we intend generating our start – up capital;

• Generate part of the start – up capital from personal savings
• Source for soft loans from family members and friends
• Apply for loan from my Bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $60,000 (Personal savings $40,000 and soft loan from family members $20,000) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $100,000 from our bank. All the papers and document has been signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

It is easier for businesses to survive when they have steady flow of business deals / customers patronizing their products and services. We are aware of this which is why we have decided to offer a wide range of legal services. We know that if we continue to deliver excellent legal services, there will be steady from of income for the organization.

Our key sustainability and expansion strategy is to ensure that we only hire competent employees, create a conducive working environment and employee benefits for our staff members. In the nearest future, we will explore the options of either merging with other law firms or acquire law firms in order for us to increase our market share.

We know that if we implement our business strategies, we will grow our law business beyond Oakland, California to other states in the U.S in record time.

Check List / Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check: Completed
• Business Incorporation: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts various banks in the United States: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of All form of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Generating part of the start – up capital from the founder: Completed
• Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
• writing of business plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
• Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
• Graphic Designs and Printing of Packaging Marketing / Promotional Materials: Completed
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the Needed furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
• Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
• Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
• Establishing business relationship with key players in the industry: In Progress

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Kim Mallett is a director in Major, Lindsey & Africa's partner practice group. Based in New York City, she helps partners and partner groups navigate the lateral market and finds them new opportunities in global, national, regional and local law firms. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Ellis was helpful, knowledgeable, and made our business set-up very easy. He is a wonderful resource that we will use again.

Ellis was awesome to work with. He was very quick to get us in, and very helpful in guiding us through everything in a way that made sense. Very glad we have someone that we not only trust, but also enjoy working with. Thank you!!

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Ellis did great work that really helped my wife and I out. There are so many generalizations and jokes out there about lawyers that make it easy to imagine them trafficking with the devil, and laughing all the way to the bank with your money. However, when you actually need a lawyer it’s a bit stressful to find someone you trust, let alone someone you like and feel comfortable enough to work with. I’m happy to say that in our experience, Ellis was not only a sharp, knowledgeable attorney, but also very easy and enjoyable to work with. Thank you for not living up to all the negative stereotypes!

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What is the MoSCoW Method?

The MoSCoW Method is a prioritization tool that helps professionals in managing their time and effort .

To do so, it proposes to classify the importance of the different characteristics of a product (or a Project) according to their importance .

Its name is an acronym of the 4 Prioritization Categories proposed (adding two “o”):

• M ust Have .
• S hould Have .
• C ould Have .
• W on’t Have .

Four Prioritization Categories

Must Have : Essential Requirements that the product or project must have.

• Critical Features without replacement.

Should Have : Important desired Requirements for the product or project.

• They can be substituted if necessary.

Could Have : Improvements to the product or project.

• There are different alternatives.

Won’t have : Characteristics agreed not to be adopted .

• No one will waste time implementing them.

Let’s see the first example:

MoSCoW Method example

Imagine that you have been hired to create a Website for a Law firm.

They want a professional Site where people can Register and, once inside, track their court cases .

Since you want to deliver the best possible Site on time, you decide to follow the MoSCoW method .

How does it look like?

Must Have :

• Solid programming without any bugs.
• A Solid Register System.
• A Safe and Reliable personal directory.

Should Have :

• A Fast Site.
• An outstanding Design.
• Notifications sent by e-mail.

Could Have :

• Custom menus.
• Suggestions.
• A Blog section with latest news.

Won’t Have :

• Paid content.
• A Public Members section.

As we usually say, this Method may seem obvious.

Then… Why is it important?

Why is the MoSCoW Method important?

Many of professionals end up wasting time , effort and resources on useless task s that are ultimately not essential at all.

Surely you have experienced this situation working in a Team:

• Everyone spends hours modifying a minor feature and, ultimately, the important thing is missing .

That is why this Method is so important:

• Because it concentrates your efforts and forces you to think about what is really important .

As you can imagine, this Tool can be employed in practically all kinds of situations.

But when do we especially recommend it?

When should you use the MoSCoW Method?

We highly recommend to use the MoSCoW Method:

• To put order and prioritization.
• To avoid wasting time with non-essential touch-ups.
• In order to meet the Essential Requirements.
• When the product can have very different characteristics.

Now, let’s see more examples:

MoSCoW Method examples

We have chosen different real examples where the MoSCoW Method can be of great help for the development of certain products.

Let’s begin:

A Wallet - MoSCoW Method example

Let’s imagine that you are developing a wallet .

As you know, wallets are very modular products.

They can have:

• Several or few departments for cards.
• Coin purse… or not.
• 1 or 2 bill slots.

There is not a canonical wallet (one that is the benchmark for all the others).

• That is why you decided to use the MoSCoW Method to develop it.

After some thoughts, you decide that your wallet:

• 2 bill slots.
• 8 compartments for credit cards.
• High resistance materials and sewing.
• Leather as its main material.
• A translucid Credit card compartment.
• A transverse horizontal compartment.
• A striking color on the inside of the bill slots.
• Completely black exterior color.
• One translucid compartment for small photos.
• A Coin purse.
• A Passport compartment.

Making a Cake - MoSCoW Method example

In this example, we’ll imagine that you are preparing a wedding Cake .

• You have a very rigid deadline (the wedding day, of course).

In addition, as you also know, Cakes can have lots of variations.

• We could say they are very modular .

That is why you decide to use the MoSCoW Method.

How does it look?

Well, your Cake:

• White coating.
• Two sugar figurines on top.
• 6 layers of sponge cake inside.
• Belgian chocolate between the layers.
• Decorations on the edges
• Sugar flowers.
• Chocolate balls.
• Scattered sugar pearls.
• Multicolor layers.
• An excessive amount of decoration.
• Fruit flavor.

Designing a Poster - MoSCoW Method example

You are now an artist hired to Design a poster for a Rock concert.

Obviously, this is a Design job with infinite variations possible.

• Also, you have a close deadline to finish it.

No need to mention that you will use the MoSCoW Method.

Finally, the Poster:

• The name of the Main rock band, very prominent.
• Images and colors that best suit their style.
• A typeface that best suits the musical style.
• An illustration related to Rock in the middle.
• The name of the rest of the bands that will play.
• Where and when it will take place.
• Where you can buy the tickets.
• Nearby metro and bus stations.
• The name of the city.
• The maximum capacity of the stadium
• At what time each band will play.

Summarizing

The MoSCoW Method is a prioritization tool that helps professionals in managing their time and effort.

It proposes to classify the importance of the different characteristics of a product in 4 Categories :

• M ust Have.
• S hould Have.
• C ould Have.
• W on’t Have.

Although this Method can be used in all kinds of situations, we highly recommend to use it:

• When working in a team .
• In Design tasks .
• When there is a close deadline .
• With modular products or projects .
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Michael Cohen Was Paid to Fix Trump’s Problems. Now He’s One of Them.

Mr. Cohen once called himself Donald J. Trump’s “designated thug.” Will he help bring about the ex-president’s downfall?

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By Ben Protess ,  Jonah E. Bromwich ,  Jonathan Swan ,  Maggie Haberman and William K. Rashbaum

Donald J. Trump has always surrounded himself with lawyers — all types of lawyers. There are the television-friendly talking heads. The polished criminal practitioners. The pit-bull litigators, the corporate suits and the legal advisers with their own legal troubles.

And then there was the singular Michael D. Cohen, lawyer by trade and enforcer by nature. With the loyalty of a surrogate son, he kept Mr. Trump’s secrets and cleaned up his messes. He was the fixer.

This week, however, Mr. Cohen is poised to unfix Mr. Trump’s life. When he takes the stand as a vital witness at Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, Mr. Cohen will unearth some of the secrets he buried, revealing a mess that prosecutors say his former boss was desperate to hide.

The Links Between Trump and 3 Hush-Money Deals

Here’s how key figures involved in making hush-money payoffs on behalf of Donald J. Trump are connected.

It will represent a pivotal moment of the trial, and the climax of a decades-long relationship between two New York loudmouths who used each other, betrayed each other and will now face off on the biggest stage: The first criminal trial of an American president.

Interviews with 10 of Mr. Cohen’s allies and adversaries, as well as a review of court records and Mr. Cohen’s books, paint a portrait of a once-obscure operator who came to play an outsized role in American politics, a man whose relationship with the former president traced an arc from asset to threat.

From the stand, Mr. Cohen will tell of his greatest coup in Mr. Trump’s employ, the time when he paid $130,000 to suppress a porn star’s story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. He did so, he will say, at his boss’s direction. And, illuminating what prosecutors say is the cover-up at the heart of the case, he is expected to offer his firsthand account of how, after the 2016 election, the new president reimbursed him for the hush money, but falsified records to disguise those payments as legal expenses.

Mr. Trump denies any role in falsifying the records, and says he never had sex with the porn star, Stormy Daniels. His lawyers dispute that any crime occurred.

Despite months of preparation, Mr. Cohen, 57, will be unpredictable on the stand, prone as he is to both tirades and charm.

Prosecutors acknowledged on Friday having little control over Mr. Cohen, who, despite their admonitions, has taunted Mr. Trump throughout the trial. In a recent TikTok video, Mr. Trump’s lawyers complained, he wore a shirt with a picture of the former president behind bars, prompting the judge to request that he keep quiet.

But prosecutors, who are offering Mr. Cohen nothing in return, have little leverage to rein him in. Unlike a traditional cooperating witness who trades testimony for leniency, he has already spent more than a year in federal prison for paying the hush money and committing other crimes.

That experience, contrasted with that of other Trump aides who avoided indictment or received pardons, has catalyzed his anger. Mr. Cohen, whose self-image remains inextricably tied to Mr. Trump, has transformed himself from lackey to antagonist, adopting a new identity, but with the same personality.

Craving public redemption, Mr. Cohen has fashioned himself as a standard-bearer of the anti-Trump resistance, seeking what he once called a “way to right some of the many wrongs I committed at his behest.” And since his prison stint, he has made money from their feud. There have been books bluntly titled “Disloyal” and “Revenge,” and a podcast called “Mea Culpa.”

Under questioning from prosecutors, his testimony could play out like a cinematic thriller, as he casts himself as a consigliere turned state’s evidence. This is the story Mr. Cohen told when he testified before Congress, where he estimated he had made 500 threats at Mr. Trump’s behest, and at a New York civil trial, where he accused the former president of fraud.

At that trial, the defense accused Mr. Cohen of perjury. Now, Mr. Trump’s team in the criminal case is expected to escalate those attacks, painting Mr. Cohen as a rogue actor whose fixes caused more problems than they solved. They have promised to seize on Mr. Cohen’s credibility and criminal record — Mr. Trump is fond of noting that he is a “convicted liar” — and portray him as a scorned underling seeking revenge against the former president.

Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office have already anticipated those lines of attack — and leaned into them. While the prosecutors introduced witnesses to corroborate much of Mr. Cohen’s account, they have invited those same witnesses to cast him as a bully, a nervous wreck and, as one person put it, a “jerk.”

The intent is to suck the air out of the defense’s attacks and desensitize the jury to Mr. Cohen’s baggage, turning him into an object of amusement. Already, his name has drawn smiles from some of the jurors, who will now evaluate his credibility for themselves.

Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?

The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.

“He was everything Trump wanted,” said Donny Deutsch, a television personality and advertising executive who is close with Mr. Cohen and was once friendly with Mr. Trump. “He’s aggressive, he’s tenacious, he’s a bulldozer, and so what you’re hearing in court, a lot of the perceived negatives, is what made him a positive for Trump.”

Mr. Deutsch recalled that, years ago, after he had implied on television that Mr. Trump was racist, Mr. Cohen called to complain. “Donald is really upset,” Mr. Cohen said. “Can you talk to him, tell him you don’t think he’s a racist?”

Mr. Cohen, who learned from and parroted his boss, acknowledged in his memoir that he had been Mr. Trump’s “designated thug.”

Their relationship, defined by abuse and subservience, imploded soon after the hush-money deal came to light in 2018. Mr. Trump washed his hands of Mr. Cohen, who in turn vowed to flip.

Ever since, they have waged public combat with one another. Mr. Trump sued Mr. Cohen and called him a “rat.” Mr. Cohen sued Mr. Trump and called him a “mob boss.”

But, as the trial approached, people close to him say, Mr. Cohen’s notoriety as a Trump nemesis took a personal toll that left him anguished. He privately conveyed a fear for his safety, though he ultimately concluded he had no choice but to testify.

After the trial started, Mr. Cohen pledged to “sit my ass in that witness stand,” and “just tell the truth.”

‘He said he was a lawyer.’

Mr. Cohen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, had idolized Mr. Trump since his youth on Long Island. And after buying apartments in two of Mr. Trump’s New York buildings in the early 2000s, he caught Mr. Trump’s eye during a dispute with the condo board at Trump World Tower in New York.

Mr. Trump saw his potential as an enforcer, and soon Mr. Cohen received an office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower.

But Mr. Cohen’s colleagues at the Trump family real estate business saw his job as something of a mystery. They spotted him inside Mr. Trump’s office, overheard him yelling from his own and watched him walk the hallways with a pistol strapped to his ankle.

A prosecutor last week asked a former co-worker about Mr. Cohen’s precise position at the company, the Trump Organization.

“He said he was a lawyer,” Jeffrey McConney, Mr. Trump’s former corporate controller, replied dryly, eliciting laughter from the courtroom.

Mr. Cohen was indeed a lawyer, in the sense that he had graduated from law school, worked as a personal injury lawyer and occasionally performed tasks that approximated legal work under the amorphous title of executive vice president of the Trump Organization and “special counsel” to Mr. Trump.

But more often than not, Mr. Cohen’s tasks were unrelated to the law — and sometimes, at odds with it.

There was the time, Mr. Cohen recounted in “Disloyal,” that he threatened to tank a paint company with bad publicity to get thousands of gallons of free paint for Mr. Trump’s golf resort outside Miami.

And the time Mr. Cohen hired a computer programmer to rig an online CNBC poll to ensure that Mr. Trump would rank among the most influential business people alive.

And the time he threatened to ruin the college admission prospects of a child whose family was a tenant in a Trump building, so that they would not obstruct a renovation.

Mr. Cohen never much liked the term fixer. But the role had special meaning to Mr. Trump, who was always on the lookout for someone to emulate his earliest lawyer, Roy M. Cohn, an unscrupulous defender known for scorched-earth tactics honed while working for Mafia bosses and the Communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Mr. Cohen updated the part for the digital era, helping Mr. Trump draft some of his nastiest social media snipes, not at political enemies, but instead at fellow celebrities such as the actress Rosie O’Donnell.

He also scouted the occasional deal, including foreign projects that never materialized, like a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow that caught the interest of federal investigators and ultimately led to one of Mr. Cohen’s guilty pleas. (He admitted to lying to Congress about the deal out of loyalty to Mr. Trump.)

Mr. Cohen also protected the Trump family, emails and other records show. He helped Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron, find a private school. He helped his oldest, Donald Trump Jr., dig out of an ill-fated business venture. And, on occasion, Mr. Cohen has said, Mr. Trump put Mr. Cohen on the phone with his wife, Melania, to reassure her that he hadn’t been unfaithful.

In return, Mr. Trump subjected Mr. Cohen to ridicule. Over their decade together, Mr. Trump stiffed him on bonuses and threatened to fire him at least twice.

But Mr. Cohen kept searching for new ways to win the dollops of approbation he craved, including by nurturing his nascent political hopes.

Mr. Cohen, who indulged his own political aspirations as a failed City Council candidate, was one of the strongest believers in Mr. Trump as a possible president when he flirted with running in 2012. Mr. Cohen set up a website, ShouldTrumpRun.org, and went on a scouting trip to Iowa.

Although he had no formal role on the 2016 campaign, Mr. Cohen nonetheless raised millions of dollars, recruited Black supporters and was an enthusiastic booster of Mr. Trump on television.

But his greatest service came behind the scenes, arranging payoffs to two women who had threatened to go public with stories about having sex with a married Mr. Trump. One, Karen McDougal, struck a $150,000 deal with Mr. Trump’s allies at The National Enquirer, who bought and buried the former Playboy model’s story.

The second woman was the porn star, Ms. Daniels, who described her encounter with Mr. Trump in graphic detail on the witness stand last week. When Mr. Trump was slow to pay the $130,000 hush money, Mr. Cohen dug into his own pocket.

Mr. Trump repaid him monthly through the first year of the presidency. Mr. Cohen was no longer a Trump Organization employee, and Mr. Trump had excluded him from a job in Washington. But Mr. Cohen’s email signature now carried a loftier title: personal lawyer to the president.

When one of Mr. Trump’s friends asked Mr. Trump why he kept Mr. Cohen so close, Mr. Trump replied, “He has his purpose.”

The knock at the door

In the early morning hours of April 9, 2018, as Mr. Cohen puttered around a New York hotel room sipping coffee in a pair of Nike shorts, he heard a knock on the door.

Peering through the peephole, he saw a row of badges. It was the F.B.I.

The swarm of agents was at the hotel, where Mr. Cohen was staying while his apartment was undergoing repairs, with a warrant to seize evidence of various crimes, including that the hush money had constituted an illegal donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign. By midday, they had also searched his office, his home and his safe deposit box.

People who saw Mr. Cohen afterward described a suicidal man who paced the room, refusing to spend a single day in jail.

Mr. Trump was enraged as well. On the day of the search, he declared it “a disgraceful situation.”

Initially, Mr. Trump came to Mr. Cohen’s defense, publicly flattering Mr. Cohen as a “good man” and privately phoning him with a message: Stay strong. The support soon faded, the phone stopped ringing and the public praise dried up.

Not even a month after the raid, Mr. Trump called into one of his favorite television shows, “Fox & Friends,” and distanced himself, saying Mr. Cohen had handled just “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work. Mr. Trump added: “From what I understand, they’re looking at his businesses,” nodding to the tax and bank crimes to which Mr. Cohen would ultimately plead guilty.

By June, Mr. Trump’s company used that same logic to stop paying Mr. Cohen’s mounting legal bills. It was the final straw for Mr. Cohen, who hired Lanny J. Davis, a veteran Washington lawyer and public relations strategist with close ties to Democratic politicians. He also told friends that he was willing to cooperate with prosecutors.

When he pleaded guilty to federal charges that August, Mr. Cohen for the first time stood up in a courtroom to accuse the man he had once protected, saying he had paid the hush money “at the direction of” his former boss.

He told a judge, while being sentenced to prison, “I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”

In 2020, Mr. Cohen was released on furlough during the coronavirus pandemic. But the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent him back behind bars in Otisville, N.Y., after he refused to sign paperwork barring him from publishing a book during the remainder of his sentence. A judge later called his second imprisonment “retaliatory.”

His friends say he remains tortured.

“He doesn’t revel in any of this,” said Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White House aide. “If Michael had his way, he would still be working with Trump.”

‘You’re not on your podcast.’

At first, the performance was surprisingly smooth.

Mr. Cohen took the stand at Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial in October 2023 and did what the New York attorney general had asked: He testified that Mr. Trump had directed him years earlier to manipulate internal records to make the developer look richer than he was.

Then it was the defense’s turn.

Alina Habba, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, paced in front of the bench. She smiled as she reintroduced herself to Mr. Cohen and, minutes later, attacked him as a disgraced former lawyer and a serial liar who had perjured himself even while pleading guilty to a federal crime.

“You have lied under oath numerous times, Mr. Cohen, isn’t that correct?” Ms. Habba asked. Mr. Cohen acknowledged that it was.

He fought back, noting that when he had lied in court, he had often done so for Mr. Trump. He even lodged his own objections, citing legal precedents, though he had lost his law license after pleading guilty years earlier.

“You don’t get to object,” Ms. Habba told him, later reminding him, “You’re not on your podcast.”

Though the judge found that Mr. Cohen had been “credible,” his unpredictability on the witness stand stood as a cautionary tale for prosecutors in Mr. Trump’s criminal case.

The Donald Trump Indictment, Annotated

The indictment unveiled in April 2023 centers on a hush-money deal with a porn star, but a related document alleges a broader scheme to protect Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Anticipating attacks on his credibility, the prosecutors have sought to corroborate his story during the first three weeks of testimony, introducing evidence in support of his assertion that Mr. Trump directed the hush-money deal.

Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, scoffed at the notion that Mr. Cohen would have made the $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels out of the kindness of his heart because doing so “would be out of character for Michael,” an insulting comment that nonetheless supported Mr. Cohen’s story.

They also elicited testimony from another former Trump aide who confirmed that Mr. Cohen was scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump in the White House in early February 2017. At that meeting, Mr. Cohen has said, he and Mr. Trump confirmed their plan to falsify the records.

And prosecutors made sure to enter into evidence the voice of a man who had once found Mr. Cohen essential.

“Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer,” Mr. Trump said, in a recording from a news conference in 2017 that was played in the courtroom. “He’s a good lawyer at my firm.”

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Jonathan Swan is a political reporter covering the 2024 presidential election and Donald Trump’s campaign. More about Jonathan Swan

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York. More about William K. Rashbaum

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

News and Analysis

Ahead of Michael Cohen’s testimony on Monday, Justice Juan M. Merchan told prosecutors to keep Mr. Cohen from speaking about the case .

Several witnesses have mentioned Keith Schiller , Donald Trump’s bodyguard, during their testimony. Where is he?

Custodial witnesses, who have discussed FedEx labels, Sharpies and stapling protocol, have made for little spectacle in the trial. But they’ve provided basic information  about the documents at the heart of the case.

More on Trump’s Legal Troubles

Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations  at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.

Case Tracker:  Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases  involving the former president.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Could he go to prison ? And will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know , and what we don’t know .

Trump on Trial Newsletter: Sign up here  to get the latest news and analysis  on the cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.